Comprehensive Copyright and Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) Protection Strategy for Roz Ka Bhav

This expert-level report provides a detailed analysis and prescriptive framework for establishing robust legal protection for the proprietary financial and commodity database compiled and maintained by Roz Ka Bhav (“the Company”). The strategy utilizes a multilayered approach, addressing intellectual property rights under the Indian Copyright Act, 1957, cyber security and data extraction prevention under the Information Technology Act, 2000, and compliance mechanisms under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

PART I: Executive Strategy and Legal Foundation (Internal Analysis)

1. Introduction and The Nature of the Asset (Roz Ka Bhav Database)

1.1 Defining the Core Asset

The foundational intellectual property (IP) of Roz Ka Bhav resides primarily in its compilation, aggregation, curation, and proprietary delivery architecture of market and commodity price data. This resource constitutes a professional database—a systematically organized collection of largely factual information. The intrinsic value lies not merely in the raw data points (such as individual commodity prices or dates), which may be public domain, but in the resource-intensive effort, selection methodology, structure, and arrangement applied to these facts.¹

The economic value generated by Roz Ka Bhav is derived from the intellectual and financial capital invested in collecting, cleaning, organizing, and maintaining the database structure. Protecting this investment requires aggressive legal positioning that transcends traditional copyright limitations.

1.2 The Strategy of Layered Protection

Given the specific limitations within Indian IP jurisprudence regarding factual databases, effective protection must be achieved through a layered defensive strategy encompassing three primary legal domains:

Copyright Law (Structure Protection): Assertion of rights over the unique selection, compilation, and structure of the data, classifying the asset as a “literary work” under Indian law.¹
Cyber Law (Access Protection): Utilization of the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000, to penalize unauthorized access and automated extraction (data scraping) from the computer resource.³
Contract Law (Use Protection): Implementation of explicit, mandatory contractual terms (Terms of Use/Service) that strictly prohibit competitive and unauthorized use, providing a clear basis for breach of contract remedies.⁵

This layered strategy is designed to compensate for the deficiencies in structural database protection in India, transforming data theft from a difficult IP infringement claim into an actionable statutory or contractual breach claim.

2. The Indian Copyright Framework: Challenges and Solutions

2.1 Classification as a ‘Literary Work’

Under the Indian Copyright Act, 1957, databases—defined broadly as collections, compilations, directories, and tables—are protected as “literary works”.¹ This protection applies regardless of whether the database exists in a physical or purely digital form.¹

For Roz Ka Bhav, registration of the compilation and delivery methodology under this category is essential. This formal process establishes clear public notice of proprietary rights over the intellectual effort invested in the system.⁷ The registered elements must specifically detail the selection criteria, the arrangement schema, the proprietary code underlying the presentation, and the graphic design, rather than merely listing the financial content itself.¹

2.2 The Threshold of Originality and the ‘Sweat of the Brow’ Dilemma

The primary challenge in protecting the Roz Ka Bhav database stems from the high threshold of originality required by Indian courts, which adhere to the principle that copyright protection extends only to the creativity exhibited in the selection, arrangement, or presentation of the contents.¹

Indian law focuses on protecting the creator’s “intellectual effort,” but not the substantial “economic investment” required to gather and maintain non-creative, fact-based data.⁸ This creates a critical structural weakness: a competitor engaging in unauthorized data extraction (scraping) can theoretically copy the factual, underlying price data and merely rearrange it or present it differently. Since the raw factual information is not copyrightable, this rearrangement could allow the infringer to circumvent a copyright claim over the original structure.⁸

This inherent vulnerability highlights a significant gap in the Indian IP landscape: the absence of sui generis database protection. Unlike the European Union model, which grants broader protection based on “substantial investment” even if the structure lacks originality, India forces creators of valuable, resource-intensive, non-original databases to rely solely on proving originality in the compilation process.⁸

The mitigation strategy must therefore shift the legal focus away from proving originality in the final output and onto preventing the mechanism of unauthorized extraction itself. This necessitates treating the act of automated scraping as a breach of technical access control rather than a traditional infringement of literary expression.

2.3 International IP Context (TRIPS and Berne)

India is a signatory to key international IP conventions, including the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works and the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement.⁹

The Berne Convention offers protection for “collections of literary and artistic works” ¹⁰, potentially covering Roz Ka Bhav’s proprietary compilations. More significantly, the TRIPS agreement reinforces that database protection centers on the originality of the structure and the compilation process, rather than the content itself.¹⁰ These international agreements underscore the legal position that Roz Ka Bhav’s unique methodology and arrangement schema constitute an internationally recognized intellectual property asset, even if the individual data points are factual.

3. The Anti-Scraping Toolkit: IT Act and Contractual Enforcement

3.1 Enforcement under the Information Technology Act, 2000 (IT Act)

The most potent and direct legal recourse against bulk data scraping lies in Section 43 of the Information Technology Act, 2000. This section provides for civil liability, including penalties and compensation, for damage or unauthorized access to a computer system or network.³

Key Provisions and Application to Scraping:

Section 43 explicitly addresses scenarios highly relevant to data scraping activities ³:

Accessing or securing access to a computer system or network without permission of the owner.
Downloading, copying, or extracting any “data, computer data base or information” from such a computer system.³
Destroying, deleting, or altering any information residing in a computer resource or diminishing its value or utility.³

Scraping activities inherently involve accessing the computer system (Roz Ka Bhav’s website or API servers) and extracting the computer database without the explicit contractual or implied permission granted for bulk, automated data extraction. By classifying automated access and extraction as a violation of Section 43, Roz Ka Bhav can seek damages by way of compensation from the infringing party.³ This approach strategically sidesteps the need to prove that the extracted data compilation meets the high originality standard of the Copyright Act. Instead, the focus shifts to the unauthorized

act of digital trespass and extraction from the protected computer resource.⁴

The IT Act, coupled with the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, obligates digital intermediaries to prevent users from engaging in activity that violates any existing law, further reinforcing the legal requirement to prevent unauthorized data access.¹¹ Furthermore, recent regulations like the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023, while primarily focused on personal data, mandate organizations involved in digital data processing (including those that may use web scraping techniques) to maintain robust compliance measures, providing an overarching regulatory framework for responsible data handling.¹¹

3.2 Contractual Barrier: Terms of Use (TOU)

As judicial precedent in India specifically addressing the legality of web scraping remains limited outside of explicit IP infringement cases ⁵, strong, legally binding contractual terms are indispensable.

Mandatory Contractual Clauses:

Absolute Prohibition on Automation: The Terms of Use must unequivocally state that the use of any automated systems, bots, crawlers, scrapers, indexers, or similar tools to extract, harvest, or monitor the platform’s data is a direct and material breach of contract.⁵
Prohibited Use of Data: Explicit clauses must forbid all forms of commercial redistribution, competitive analysis, alteration, copying, releasing, selling, or creating derivative works based on Roz Ka Bhav’s data compilation, especially if intended to negatively impact the Company’s competitive advantage.⁶
Remedy and Termination: The TOU must stipulate that any breach of these prohibited use clauses results in immediate termination of the user’s access rights and triggers liability for civil remedies under the Indian Contract Act. Furthermore, in alignment with data licensing best practices, the agreement must mandate the immediate destruction of all copies of the syndicated or extracted data held by the licensee or unauthorized user upon termination or legal challenge.⁶

This contractual defense provides a preemptive legal remedy, allowing the Company to pursue a breach of contract suit, which can often be more straightforward than complex IP litigation, against users or competitors violating the terms.

Table 1 synthesizes the legal instruments available to Roz Ka Bhav for comprehensive data protection.

Table 1: Legal Basis for Roz Ka Bhav’s Data Protection in India

Protection Mechanism	Protected Asset	Enforcing Legislation/Doctrine	Relevant Enforcement Remedy
Copyright Protection	Selection, Arrangement, and Structure of the Database (Literary Work)	Copyright Act, 1957 (India); Berne & TRIPS Conventions ¹	Injunctions, Statutory Damages, Seizure/Delivery of Infringing Copies
Unauthorized Access & Extraction (Scraping)	Digital Data, Computer Database, Computer Resource	Information Technology Act, 2000 (Section 43) ³	Penalty and Compensation to the Affected Party (Civil Liability) ³
Contractual Breach (Prohibited Use)	Use of Data Outside Defined Terms	Indian Contract Act, 1872 (via Terms of Use) ⁵	Termination of Access, Civil Suit for Breach of Contract, Mandated Data Destruction ¹²

PART II: The Proposed Public Policy Page (Ready for Implementation)

The following content is designed to be deployed as the official “Copyright & DMCA Protection Policy” page for Roz Ka Bhav. It is formulated to be legally assertive, technically precise, and compliant with international standards, particularly the US DMCA.

1. Copyright and Proprietary Rights Notice (Roz Ka Bhav)

1.1 Statement of Ownership

Roz Ka Bhav (“The Company”) asserts and reserves all statutory and common law rights, titles, and interests in and to its compiled data resources, software, and platforms. The Company maintains exclusive ownership of the intellectual property rights pertaining to the structure, selection, organization, presentation, proprietary code, and design of all databases, indices, and financial/commodity information hosted on its systems.

This compilation, regardless of whether the source material contains publicly available factual data, constitutes a proprietary Literary Work protected under the Copyright Act, 1957 of India, as amended, and is accorded protection in accordance with international treaties, including the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works and the TRIPS Agreement.¹

1.2 Scope of Protection

Protected Elements: Copyright protection specifically extends to the following unique, creative, and intellectual efforts undertaken by Roz Ka Bhav ¹:

The original selection and curation criteria applied to filter and choose data for inclusion in the database.
The unique arrangement, sequencing, structure, and taxonomy of the compiled data.
All proprietary software, code, scripts, algorithms, and methodologies used for data generation, storage, presentation, and indexing.
All original creative content, including articles, analytical text, graphical representations, charts, and visual presentation layer.

Unprotected Elements and Cyber Protection: While individual factual elements, such as a single specific commodity price or trading date, are typically considered uncopyrightable, any unauthorized digital downloading, copying, or bulk extraction of even these factual data points from the Company’s computer resource, particularly through automated means, constitutes a separate and severe violation of Indian Cyber Law. This extraction is strictly prohibited under the Information Technology Act, 2000.³

2. Permitted and Prohibited Uses of Data

2.1 Permitted Use (Fair Dealing)

Limited, non-commercial use of the data is generally permitted under the Fair Dealing exceptions provided in Section 52 of the Indian Copyright Act, 1957.⁸ Acceptable uses include:

Limited reproduction for purposes of private study, personal reference, or non-commercial research.
Reproduction for bona fide educational or academic purposes.

Any such permitted use must be minimal, must not impair the competitive position of the Company, and must not involve the systematic reproduction or republication of the proprietary arrangement or compilation structure.⁸ Attribution to Roz Ka Bhav is required for all uses.

2.2 Prohibited Commercial Use and Data Scraping (Cyber and Contractual Barrier)

The following actions are strictly prohibited and constitute both a breach of the Terms of Use and a statutory violation of the Information Technology Act, 2000:

Absolute Prohibition on Automated Extraction: The use of any mechanized, automated, or systematic means, including but not limited to, robots, spiders, crawlers, scrapers, indexers, data harvesting tools, or any software designed to monitor, access, or copy any material or data from Roz Ka Bhav’s platform, APIs, or underlying computer systems, is strictly forbidden.⁵

Prohibited Commercial Activities: Without an express, written data licensing agreement from Roz Ka Bhav, users are prohibited from engaging in any of the following activities:

Copying, reproducing, redistributing, modifying, translating, or creating derivative works based on the organized data compilation.
Syndicating, licensing, leasing, selling, or commercially exploiting the data compilation, whether in its original form or rearranged.⁶
Any use or disclosure of the data intended to negatively impact the competitive advantage of Roz Ka Bhav in the marketplace, or to build a competitive database or product.⁶
Public display or transmission of the data in bulk or in a manner that substitutes for a direct commercial subscription to the Company’s services.

Legal Consequences Warning (IT Act, 2000): Unauthorized digital copying, downloading, or extraction of the database or information stored on the Company’s computer resources, including web scraping, constitutes a direct contravention of Section 43 of the Information Technology Act, 2000.³ Any person committing such an act shall be liable to pay substantial damages by way of compensation to Roz Ka Bhav for the wrongful loss and damage caused to the computer data and database.³ Furthermore, breach of these prohibitions may lead to immediate termination of access and civil suits for breach of contract and mandated destruction of all illegally obtained data copies.¹²

3. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) Policy

Roz Ka Bhav respects the intellectual property rights of others and is committed to operating in compliance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), 17 U.S.C. § 512. This policy establishes the required notice and takedown procedure for copyright owners whose material may be infringing and hosted on Roz Ka Bhav’s platform (if Roz Ka Bhav functions as an Online Service Provider (OSP)).

3.1 Designated Agent for DMCA Notifications

Pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 512(c), the Company designates the following agent to receive notifications of claimed copyright infringement (Takedown Notices):

DMCA Designated Agent Information

Description	Detail
Full Legal Name	Roz Ka Bhav Legal Compliance Department
Physical Address	Jaipur, Rajasthan
Email Address	futurenitish@gmail.com
Telephone Number	852906854

4. Takedown Notice Procedure (For Copyright Holders)

Any copyright owner or agent authorized to act on behalf of a copyright owner who believes that content hosted on the Roz Ka Bhav platform infringes their copyright must submit a legally valid DMCA Takedown Notice to the Designated Agent listed above. Notices must comply strictly with the requirements of 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3).

Invalid notices, or notices asserting rights other than copyright (such as trademark, defamation, or privacy claims), will be rejected and may be considered an abuse of process.¹⁴

A valid Takedown Notice must include all of the following elements:

Table 2: Mandatory Checklist for a Valid DMCA Takedown Notice

Requirement	Description	Legal Significance
Identification of Work	A description of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed, including the URL/location of the original copyrighted work (if applicable).¹⁵	Defines the protected asset and its original location.
Identification of Infringement	Identification of the specific material claimed to be infringing and information reasonably sufficient to permit Roz Ka Bhav to locate the material (the specific URL/link where the content appears on the Company’s site).¹⁷	Allows the OSP to fulfill the removal obligation by pinpointing the location.
Contact Details	Complete physical address, telephone number, and email address of the complaining party or authorized agent.¹⁵	Enables mandatory verification and communication.
Good Faith Statement	A statement that the complaining party has a good faith belief that the use of the material complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.¹⁶	A required statutory component of the notice.
Accuracy & Perjury Statement	A statement, made under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notice is accurate and that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.¹⁶	Imposes civil and criminal liability for false claims, discouraging malicious or abusive notices.¹⁴
Signature	The physical or electronic signature of the copyright owner or a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner.¹⁷	Legally executes the binding document.

The intentional submission of a materially false Takedown Notice can subject the complaining party to liability for damages, costs, and attorneys’ fees, and may constitute a violation of federal law.¹⁷

5. Counter-Notification Procedure (Responding to a Takedown)

If a user believes that material they posted on Roz Ka Bhav was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification (for example, if they assert a right to Fair Use, or if they have a valid license), they may submit a counter-notification to the DMCA Designated Agent.

A valid counter-notification is a legally binding statement designed to initiate a specific reinstatement process. Upon receiving a valid counter-notification, Roz Ka Bhav is required to forward it to the original claimant. The Company must then wait 10 to 14 US business days. If the original claimant does not provide evidence during that period that they have filed a court action seeking a judicial order to restrain the user from engaging in the infringing activity, Roz Ka Bhav is obligated to restore the material.¹⁸

A Counter-Notification must include all of the following mandatory elements, pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 512(g)(3):

Table 3: Mandatory Requirements for a Valid DMCA Counter-Notification

Requirement	Description	Legal Significance
Identification of Content	Clear identification of the material that was removed or disabled and the URL/location where the material appeared before it was removed.¹⁹	Confirms the content subject to dispute.
Contact Information	The full legal name, physical address, and telephone number of the user. Note: This must be the individual’s legal name, not a company or channel name.¹⁹	Required to allow the original claimant to initiate legal action (service of process).
Rationale Statement	A statement, made under penalty of perjury, that the user has a good faith belief that the material was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification of the material to be removed or disabled.¹⁹	Establishes the legal basis for content reinstatement.
Consent to Jurisdiction	A statement consenting to the jurisdiction of the Federal District Court for the judicial district in which the user’s address is located (or the Northern District of California if the address is outside the United States).²⁰	This is a crucial legal commitment requiring the user to accept the authority of a US court.
Acceptance of Process	A statement accepting service of process from the person who provided the original takedown notification or an agent of such person.²⁰	Ensures the claimant can legally sue the user to keep the content disabled.
Signature	The user’s physical or electronic signature (full legal name).¹⁹	Legally executes the binding statement.

Failure to include any of these mandated elements will result in the counter-notification being rejected.¹⁹ The submission of a counter-notification is a serious legal action that could lead to litigation, and users are strongly advised to consult legal counsel prior to submission.

6. Non-DMCA IP Reporting and Legal Caveats

6.1 Reporting Indian Copyright and Cyber Infringement

For infringements specifically related to the unauthorized reproduction of Roz Ka Bhav’s proprietary structure or data extraction that relies on violations of the Indian Copyright Act, 1957, or the Information Technology Act, 2000 (Section 43), the following dedicated contact point should be used:

Indian IP and IT Act Violation Reporting:

Department: Roz Ka Bhav Legal Department
Email: futurenitish@gmail.com
Purpose: Reporting incidents of data scraping, bulk extraction, commercial redistribution within the Indian legal jurisdiction, and violations of the Terms of Use regarding data usage.

6.2 Trade Secrets and Common Law Protection

While India lacks specific, comprehensive legislation governing trade secrets, the Company maintains the confidentiality of its proprietary methodologies, algorithms, and non-public data through contractual obligations and recourse to existing legal frameworks.²¹

Protection against misappropriation of trade secrets (such as the specific algorithms for weighting or cleaning price data) is enforceable through principles of equity and common law actions for breach of confidence. Furthermore, in cases involving criminal intent or unauthorized access utilized to steal proprietary information, relief may be sought under the provisions of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (which prohibits data theft by classifying digital information as movable property) and the Information Technology Act, 2000.¹⁰

Conclusions and Recommendations

The legal protection of Roz Ka Bhav’s financial data compilation is dependent on shifting primary defense mechanisms away from the vulnerable area of originality under the Copyright Act, 1957, toward robust enforcement mechanisms under the Information Technology Act, 2000, and stringent contractual terms.

Prioritize Section 43 Enforcement: The most effective defense against data scraping is asserting unauthorized access and extraction under Section 43 of the IT Act, 2000. This approach allows the Company to seek substantial damages and compensation by proving unauthorized digital trespass, bypassing the inherent difficulty in proving high structural originality under copyright law.³
Mandatory Licensing: The strict and explicit prohibition of all competitive, commercial, or syndication uses of the data must be rigorously enforced via the Terms of Use. This contractual barrier serves as a powerful deterrent, compelling legitimate commercial users to enter into formal data licensing agreements, thereby directly protecting the economic value of the underlying data investment.¹³
DMCA Protocol Rigor: The established DMCA protocol must be strictly maintained. The requirement for counter-notifiers to consent to US Federal District Court jurisdiction acts as a vital procedural safeguard, discouraging frivolous challenges to takedown notices by making users legally liable for their claims.²⁰
Continuous Monitoring: The efficacy of this legal framework is contingent upon continuous, technological monitoring of the platform for unauthorized automated activity. Prompt detection and legal action against Section 43 violations are essential to establish jurisprudence and deterrence within the Indian market.

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