Copyright protects the way an idea is expressed — in writing, music, art, film or software — the moment it is created and fixed in some tangible form, without any filing required. Under the Copyright Act, 1957, that protection can run for the author's lifetime and decades beyond. Biswajit Sarkar helps clients put that right on record, defend it, and enforce it when it's used without permission.
Unlike a patent or a trademark, copyright doesn't need to be applied for to exist — it arises automatically under Section 13 the moment an original work is created and fixed in some material form. Registration is optional, but it creates a public record that is useful evidence of authorship and the date of creation if the work is ever disputed.
Section 13(1) recognises literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works, plus cinematograph films and sound recordings as separate classes, each with its own duration and ownership rules.
The Copyright Office's public database can be checked by title, applicant name or diary number to see whether a similar work has already been registered.
The first owner is usually the author, though Section 17 shifts ownership to an employer for works made in the course of employment, and to a commissioner in certain specific cases.
Registration is voluntary but recommended — it puts the work's authorship, ownership and date of creation on an official record. The process is administered by the Copyright Office under the Copyright Rules, 2013, and runs through six stages.
Filed on Form XIV through the Copyright Office's e-filing portal, with a copy or specimen of the work, the prescribed fee, and — where the work is also used as a trademark or label — a No Objection Certificate from the Trade Marks Registry.
The application receives a diary number and is held for 30 days, giving anyone the opportunity to inspect it and raise an objection before examination begins.
If an objection is filed within the 30-day period, both the applicant and the objector are given a hearing before the Registrar decides how the application should proceed.
Where no objection is filed, or once one is resolved, an examiner scrutinises the application. Any discrepancy is raised in a letter to the applicant, who must respond within 30 days.
Once satisfied, the Registrar enters the work's particulars — title, author, class, date of creation — in the Register of Copyrights maintained under Section 45.
An extract of the entry is issued to the applicant as the Certificate of Registration, which stands as prima facie evidence of the particulars entered in any later dispute.
A copyright entry can be challenged at two different points — while the application is still pending, and after the work is already on the Register. Each route sits with a different authority and serves a different purpose.
Filed with the Registrar of Copyrights during the 30-day window after an application is diarised, typically on the ground that the applicant isn't the true author or owner, or that the work conflicts with an earlier one.
Sought once a work is already registered, typically before the relevant High Court following the transfer of the erstwhile Copyright Board's functions under the Tribunals Reforms Act, 2021, on the ground that an entry was made without sufficient cause, wrongly remains on the Register, or contains an error or defect.
Copyright doesn't need periodic renewal the way a patent or trademark does — its term is fixed by statute and runs on its own once the work exists. What does need active attention is how the right is assigned or licensed while it lasts.
Section 22 protects these for the author's lifetime plus 60 years, counted from the calendar year following the year of the author's death.
Sections 23 to 29 give cinematograph films, sound recordings, photographs, government works and anonymous or pseudonymous works a flat term of 60 years from the calendar year following first publication.
Once created, the term runs on its own for its statutory length — there's no periodic fee or filing needed to keep copyright alive, unlike a patent or trademark registration.
Section 19 requires any assignment to be in writing and signed by the assignor, specifying the rights assigned, the duration and territorial extent — an unspecified duration or territory defaults to five years and India-wide, respectively.
Infringement under Section 51 covers both the unauthorised use of a work itself and knowingly dealing in infringing copies of it. Fair dealing under Section 52 — for research, review, reporting or teaching — remains a defence in appropriate cases.
Reproducing, communicating to the public, or otherwise exercising the copyright owner's exclusive rights over a substantial part of a work, without a licence and without falling within a fair-dealing exception.
Selling, distributing, exhibiting or importing infringing copies, or letting a place be used for a public performance that infringes copyright, while knowing or having reason to believe the copies are infringing.
Copyright doesn't have an international filing system the way patents have the PCT or trademarks have the Madrid Protocol. Instead, protection abroad flows automatically from the treaties India already belongs to.
India is a member of the Berne Convention, so a work protected here automatically receives copyright protection in every other member country, without any separate international application.
India's membership of the UCC extends similar reciprocal protection to the small number of countries that are UCC signatories but not Berne members, closing most remaining gaps.
This government notification is what formally extends reciprocal treatment in India to works first published in any Berne, UCC or WTO/TRIPS member country, and vice versa.
Once a work is protected in its country of origin, treaty membership carries that protection into every other member state automatically — there's no equivalent of a national-phase filing to complete.
Berne doesn't create a supranational court, so enforcing the right in another member country still runs through that country's own domestic law and procedure, generally with local counsel.
India ratified the WCT in 2018, extending Berne-level protection into the digital context — covering computer programs as literary works, original databases, and rental and making-available rights online.
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