Legal Procedures for Copyright Law in India

The main objective of Copyright Act, 1957 is to encourage people with creative bent of mind belonging to the areas of Art, Literature and composing. The provisions of the Act reward them exclusive rights for a time-bound period so that no can exploit their creations commercially by reproducing them in any way.

Copyright is a right that is given to the people belonging to literary, dramatic, musical and cinematic arts. Actually, it’s a bunch of so many rights that include rights of reproduction, mass communication, adaptation and translation of any particular work. There may be some variations in the composition of the right depending upon the nature of a particular creation.

Copyright exists right from the creation of any particular work. As per the copyright law in India, registration is voluntary and not required either for acquiring copyright or for enforcing it. However, for any kind of legal proceedings, it has evidentiary importance. Under copyright law, the person who has created a particular work is its owner and at the same is the owner of copyright till he or she agrees to give or sell his right to any other entity or body.

The duration of copyright depends upon the nature of the work. The general rule is that literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works are protected for the lifetime of the author plus 60 years, calculated from the beginning of the calendar year following the year of the author’s death (Section 22 of the Copyright Act, 1957). Where such a work has more than one author, the 60-year period runs from the death of the last surviving author.

Following the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012, photographs are no longer treated as a separate category and now enjoy the same term as other artistic works — the author’s lifetime plus 60 years. For certain other categories where there is no individual author in the ordinary sense — such as cinematograph films, sound recordings, computer programmes, anonymous and pseudonymous works, posthumous works, and works of government and public undertakings — copyright subsists for 60 years from the beginning of the calendar year following the year in which the work is first published.

It is also worth noting a recent change to the enforcement framework. The Copyright Board has been abolished by the Tribunal Reforms Act, 2021, and the matters it used to handle are now dealt with by the Commercial Courts and the High Courts.

Any person who wants to claim copyright in a work can make a use of copyright notice to make public alert about his or her claim. It is not imperative to have a registration to use any designation but it is highly suggestible to place C in circle or the word copyright containing the name of the concerned owner and the year when it was first broadcasted to the public.

Further, it is the sole responsibility of the owner to check that his or her copyright is not at stake or infringed upon by any person. If any kind of infringement is being made by any person, it is the duty of the owner himself to file suit against it. Under the procedures of Copyright Act, a criminal action can also be taken for the doer. The minimum punishment for the infringement of copyright is 6 months imprisonment with fine of 50,000 rupees. In case the same person does it second time, the same can be double.