Frequently asked questions on copyrights act

Copyright protection is provided under Copyright Act, 1957. The act is amended time to time.

Copyright is provided for the original expression of idea. This expression of idea can be literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works and cinematograph films and sound recordings. A laundry list of types of work commonly protected by copyright is given below:

• computer programs, databases (such as database of JustDial);
• literary works such as novels, blogs, poems, plays, newspaper articles etc
• films, musical compositions, advertisements, maps, and technical drawings.
• artistic works such as paintings, drawings, photographs, and sculpture;
  architecture

Reach out to us if you want to know if your work falls in which protection category.

Copyright is provided for written, musical and other creative works such as play, films, paints etc. Thus copyright is owned by writers, artists, designers, dramatists, musicians, architects and producers of sound recordings, cinematograph films and computer programmers etc.

Under this intellectual property law provides rights of reproduction, communication to the public, adaptation and translation of the work. The rights can be different depending on the type of work.

Copyright is provided to the creator. In this particular example the copyright is you as the author. However, if you are creating this content as paid service to someone example – a producer of the movie in this case the right can be owned by the producer.

Generally title, slogan, coined word or short word combination can be a subject matter of Trademarks. Copyright ordinarily does not protect titles, coined name, slogans, short phrases, etc. In fact copyright is not given to any factual information such as land area of India.

In very simple words, Indian IPR policy generally offers copyright protection to software codes. However, there may be cases for software to be a patent subject matter, please contact us for the details and specific questions.

Indian copyrights act considers Computer Software as a ‘literary work’ under Section 2 (o) of the Copyright Act, 1957.

Indeed, an App (or mobile application in this case) is a code, under section 2 (0) of copyright act it is a literary work. However, we would request you to please contact us for discussing the dynamics of the same instead of this small answer.

There are two questions here one is regarding registration and other about the process of registration.

So this is a very common question we get from enthusiastic creators about is it required to register your original work as copyright. A one word answer to it is “No”.

The moment you write an original story or blog post for that matter or any other expression of idea (e.g. a photograph, painting, video a drawing or architecture drawing), it is your copyright. Copyright is an automatic right and does not require a formal application.

However, it is always better to protect your rights with registration. A certificate of registration is an evidence of ownership. In case of any dispute related to ownership this certification becomes a reference in the court of law.

Second part of the question was registration process. One can apply for copyright at The Copyright Office. The office accepts all types of works covered by copyright act. Indian Copyrights office is in Delhi. It accepts application by post as well as On-line.

Reach us for detailed process of copyright protection; we would be more than willing to help you explain it. We are creating a solution to help you figure it out in terms of time, investment and process.

Once an application is filed with the copyright office, a diary number is given. After a wait time of 30 days for objections – if any – examination of the content is done. Assuming no objections are found / raised by any other entity, the registration is done. So in a normal case a copyright can be awarded in less than a year depending on the availability of required information.