About:
In India, the Copyright Act 1957 governs the matter of copyright law. The Act came into force w.e.f 21 January 1958. A copyright is a right given by law not to imitate someone’s already performed work. A copyright gives the creator of the topic an exclusive right over his work. No one can imitate, copy, or reproduce the original work in any other way if a work is protected by copyright.
The area of protection under the Copyright Act, 1957:
Copyright protects original literary work, sound recording, training manuals, music, books, software, and work of artistic craftsmanship and films and sound recordings from unauthorized uses. But the Copyright Act does protect any ideas or concepts. To get the protection in Copyright Act one must have the original work. Copyright does not protect in perpetuity means it only protects for a limited period.
Register a work under copyright law:
It is not necessary to get copyright shielding but always sensible to do so because it will give the creator a certain set of minimum rights over his original work and the protection that no one will be able to imitate his original work for a minimum period. This assurance will always motivate the creator to do more creative work and create more items. Copyright of foreign works protected in India means copyrights of original works of the countries stated in the International Copyright Order are protected in India as if such original works are Indian works and to give the same right.
Registration procedure to obtain Copyright:
In order to obtain copyright registration, one must follow the under mentioned process:
- An application to be made in the format of FORM IV has to be sent to the registrar with the requisite fees. A separate application has to be made for separate works for which copyright is required.
- For different works, the fees of the work have been given by the government on the site copyright.gov.in (link: http://copyright.gov.in/frmFeeDetailsShow.aspx)
- Every application for copyright made by the applicant has to be signed by the applicant as well as an Advocate in whose favor a Vakalatnama or a POA has been executed.
- The registrar will issue a Dairy No. and then there is a required waiting time for 30 days for any objections to be received.
- If there are no objections received within 30 days, the scrutinizer will examine the application made by the applicant for any inconsistency and if no inconsistency found, the registration will be ended and an extract will be sent to the registrar for the entry in the Register of Copyright which is maintained by registrar.
- If they undergo any objection, the examiner will make a letter and send it to both the group (parties) about the objections and then he will give them both a hearing.
- After the hearing, if the objections raised by the examiner are resolved then the scrutineer will scrutinize the application made by the applicant and approve or reject the application as the case may be.
Rights of a Copyright Owner:
The copyright owner has exclusive right over original work in which they own the copyright it includes:
- Broadcasting the Copyrighted work.
- Reproducing the work i.e photocopying, scanning, recording, and filming, etc.
- Communicating the work to other e.g. mailing or faxing the work.
- Performance of the copyrighted work in public.
If someone wants to use the copyrighted work he has to take the permission of the owner of the material first.
