Copyright Registration in India

India’s copyright law is laid down in THE INDIAN COPYRIGHT ACT, 1957 as amended by Copyright (Amendment) Act, 1999 and INDIAN COPYRIGHT RULES, 1958.

Copyright means the exclusive right to do & authorise to do certain acts in relation to artistic, literary, dramatic, musical works, cinematographic film, sound recording and software. In essence, Copyright means the right to copy or reproduce the work in which Copyright subsist.

The Copyright vests in original work in whatever form it may be, i. e. literary, artistic, etc. The registration of Copyright in India is not mandatory but useful in courts where civil and / or criminal proceeding are initiated to protect a copyright from infringement and obtain other legal recourse available to the owner of copyright.

What Copyright protects

Copyright is that area of intellectual property law that governs the creation and attendant rights thereto. The copyright Act grants protection to all categories of copyrightable work including Literary Work, Dramatic Work, Musical Work, Artistic Work, Cinematograph Film, Photograph, painting, portrait, Work made in the course of employment, Lectures delivered in public, Government Work, Work made on behalf of a public undertaking, Work of certain international organization, Question papers of an examination, Collective work, Plan of a building or a structure ,etc.

With reference to these works exclusive rights are granted , interalia, the right to reproduce the work, publish the work, make any abridgement or adaptation, translation of work. These rights are the core of the Copyright law, as being the exclusive privilege of the owners of the work. No other person can exercise any of those rights, and if one does, then the owner thereof can sue him for infringement, claiming injunction, damages, profits and other relief’s.

Registration of Copyright

Under section 45 of the of The Copyright Act, 1957, the author or the publisher of, or the owner of or other person interested in the copyright in, any work may make an application in the prescribed form accompanied by the prescribed fee to the registrar of copyrights for entering particulars of the work in the Register of Copyrights

The term of validity of Copyright registration for literary work,dramatic, musical ,artistic works is the life time of the Author and 60 YEARS after his death.

For filing the copyright application for registration in India, following are the requirements:

• Full Name, Address and Nationality of Applicant & that of the author
• year & country of first publication of the work
• List of countries where the work has been published and the year of publication
• The year & the country of last publication
• Six copies of the work
• Power of Attorney
• Written specification of the work

The process of obtaining the certificate of copyright in India takes about 3-4 months

Following procedure is adopted for the grant of copyright in India:

· The application with complete details is filed.

· Thereafter, the application is examined and objections, if any, are raised thereto.

· The certificate is issued by the copyright office after the objections, if any, are removed to the satisfaction of the Copyright Registry .