Copyright act

 Copyright act

Introduction

The Copyright Act, 1957, governs the law pertaining to copyright in India. The major goals of this copyright law are twofold: first, to guarantee authors, musicians, painters, designers, and other creative individuals the right to their creative interpretation; and second, to enable others to openly develop upon the concepts and knowledge made available by a work. India’s history with copyright laws dates back to the British Empire’s colonial rule. A law called the Indian Copyright Act, 1957, was passed; it went into effect in January 1958 and has since undergone five revisions, in 1983, 1984, 1992, 1994, and 1999. The Copyright Act of 1957 was India’s first copyright law following independence, and six amendments have been made since then. The Copyright (Amendment) Act 2012, which was passed in 2012, was the most recent amendment. The concept of copyright in India is governed by the Indian Copyright Act, 1957, as modified from time to time, and the Indian Copyright Rules, 1958 (Rules).

Copyright law as its name suggests is the simple law that suggests if you create something you own it and only you get to decide what happens next with it. The objective of this copyright law is mainly twofold: first to assure authors, composers, artists, designers and other creative people, who risk their capital in putting their works before the public, the right of their original expression, and second to encourage others to build freely upon the ideas and information conveyed by a work. 

What is copyright

Copyright is a type of intellectual property right. Authors who have original works such as works of literature (including computer programs, tables, collections, computer datasets, expressed in words, codes, schemes, or in any other context, along with a device readable medium), dramatic, musical, and artistic works, cinematographic films, and audio recordings are all awarded copyright safeguards under Indian law. Instead of protecting the ideas themselves, Copyright Law safeguards manifestations of ideas. Literary works, theatrical works, musical works, creative works, cinematographic films, and sound recordings all have copyright protection under Section 13 of the Copyright Act of 1957. For instance, the Act protects literary works such as books and computer programs.

The term “copyright” refers to a collection of exclusive rights that Section 14 of the Act grants to the owner of the copyright. Only the copyright owner or another person who has permission to do so from the copyright owner may exercise these rights. These rights include the ability to adapt, reproduce, publish, translate, and communicate with the public, among other things. Copyright registration just establishes an entry for the work in the Copyright Register kept by the Registrar of Copyrights and does not grant any rights. 

creation or carrying out any other actions that, under Copyright Law, are only permitted to be carried out by him. The exclusive rights to works protected by copyright have a term limit. In contrast to physical property, which endures for the lifetime of the thing on which it is bestowed, copyright only exists for a finite amount of time. After this time period has passed, the work enters the ‘public domain’. In other words, it becomes public property and is available for use without restriction by everyone. Therefore, the public interest is served by exclusive rights to copyrighted works for a short time.

Important sections of the Copyright Act, 1957

The following are the important sections of the Copyright Act of 1957: 

Section 2 deals with various definitions of the work which can be covered under the definition of copyright. For example, Section 2(o) deals with literary works, Section 2(h) includes all dramatic works under the definition of copyright protection, and Section (p) deals with musical and graphical works.  

Section 13 of the Copyright Act, 1957, is the most requisite Section as it deals with the subject matter of copyright protection. According to Section 13(1), all of India is under the purview of the Copyright, and the following classifications of works are protected by the Copyright: 

Original artistic, musical, dramatic, and literary works 

Sound recording 

Cinematograph films 

The published and unpublished works of architecture are discussed in Section 13(2). If the work is published, it must be published in India. If the work is published outside of India, the author must be an Indian citizen at the time of publication or at the time of his death. Except for works of architecture, the authors of unpublished works must be Indian citizens or have a place of residence in India. When it comes to architectural works, only the work itself must be from India and not the architect, because architectural works can also be done in written form. The copyright in an architectural work shall only apply to the creative character and design and shall not include the construction process or processes.

A few rights are protected under copyright legislation. These three types of rights are common or economic, moral, and neighbouring. According to Section 14, moral rights are granted under Section 57, economic rights are granted under Section 14 and neighbouring rights are granted under Sections 37A and 378.

protection, a musical work must be original. 

Original Artistic Work

According to the Copyright Act, 1957, artistic work includes any painting, sculpture, drawing, or engraving photograph of any work possessing artistic qualities. However, it also includes the architecture and artistic craftsmanship of such works. 

Cinematographic Films

According to the Copyright Act,1957 cinematographic films includes any work of visual recording and a sound recording accompanying such visual recording and the expression cinematograph shall be construed as including any work produced by any process analogous to cinematographic including video films. 

Right to communicate;

Right to issue copies;

Right to make any cinematography and sound recording;

Right to make an adaptation; and

Right to do any other activities related to the translation or adaptation. 

In case of a cinematograph film work:

Right to sell, rent, offer for sale of the copyrighted work; and

Right to communicate.

In the case of a sound recording work:

Right to communicate;

Right to issue copies; and

Right to sell, rent, offer for sale of the copyrighted work.

Moral rights

In addition to the protection of economic rights, the Copyright Act, 1957 conjointly protects ethical rights, that is due to the actual fact that a literary or inventive work reflects the temperament of the creator, just as much as the economic rights reflect the author’s need to keep the body and the soul of his work out from commercial exploitation and infringement. These rights are supported by Article 6 of the Berne Convention of 1886, formally referred to as a world convention for the protection of literary and inventive works, whose core provision relies on the principle of national treatment, i.e. treats the opposite good as one’s own.

Section 57 of The Copyright Act,1957 recognize two types of moral rights which are:

Right to paternity– which incorporates the right to assert the authorship of the work, and the right to forestall others from claiming authorship of his work; and

Right to integrity- which incorporates right to restrain, or claim of damages in respect of any distortion, modification, mutilation, or any other act relates to the said work if such distortion, multiplication or alternative act would be prejudiced to claimant honor or enriches its national cultural heritage of it. However, higher the level of protection given to literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work in any country, automatically higher is the number of intelligent creation, i.e. higher its renown. Thus, in the final analysis, we can say for economic, cultural and social development, it is the basic perquisites.