Scope of Copyright Protection in India | Unilex

Before understanding the scope of copyright, first, you have to know what does actually mean of copyright. A copyright refers to the right to copy, which means that the right only creator has. He/she has a right to reproduce, distribute, publically displayed or transfer to another person. Without taking the permission of an author, no one has a right to play with the intellectual property.

Copyright is a form of protection that is given to the creators who produce original work. It doesn’t protect the facts, ideas, systems, methods, or methods of operations, however, it protects the way the things expressed.

Individuals often confuse between copyright, patent, and trademark. A copyright protects original works of authorship, whereas a patent protects innovation and new discoveries, and trademark protect symbol, phrases, or designs.

Ownership of copyright:

The owner of the copyright means the person who is granted to enjoy all the rights of copyright. The creator of the work can be joint authors, in order to satisfy the joint authorship copyright has to prove (a) in what part of expression author implemented his work (b) contribution must be original nature of work (C) Contribution, however, not be equal, but substantially make a balance (D) the contribution on the work must be qualitatively and quantitatively sustainably equal.

When more than one person is involved in the authorship process, the identity of the authors “rights and duties” and that must be shared between the authors. If joint authorship exits “the joint work” will be recognized as the co-owners of the copyrighted work. The examples of co-authorship and collaboration are co-writer, illustrator, ghostwriter, a book packager, or work that include copyrighted material owned by another author.

Responsibilities of co-authors:

• Each co-author will own equal rights and duties. Furthermore, they will own an equal ownership share of work.

• Each co-author has a responsibility to acknowledge to the other author about the profit that comes from the published work.

• Each co-author gets equal credibility from the published work.

• Any co-author, without taking concern from the other co-author, may not have a right to share the work with the third parties. However, he has a right to assign his work to the third party without taking permission to author co-author.

Scope of Copyright Protection:

However, there are a few countries allow an author to formally register a copyright, it is not possible in some countries to register a copyright. Currently, in some countries, the term of copyright protection endures for the author’s life plus 70 years after the death of the author.

In order to fall within the scope of copyright protection, a work must meet some legal guidelines and that are listed below.

• The work must be original: The work must be created by the author and show an idea, judgment, and skills of the author.

• The work must be fixed: The work must be exited in material or material form.

• Copyright protection is automatic, although there are benefits to officially registering your work with the copyright office.

• The work must be met the nationality requirements.

Keep in mind, the copyright protection extends to the expression of ideas in a work, not to ideas themselves. For example, a writer has a right to protect his content, but the topic in which he has written remains available for all writers to write-up.

• Reproduce the work.

• Prepare derivative works based upon the work.

• Distribute copies of the work.

• Publically displayed the work.

• Perform the work publically through websites, blogs, and other digital media platforms.

Limits on Copyright Protection:

The following are the limitation apply to copyright protection:

• Fair use; This is the legal right that can be used by anyone. It enables individuals to use the author’s work for education, library, and other literature purposes. In the event, when the copyright holder sees his/her work as an educational purpose, so he/she has no right to claim a copyright infringement action against them.

• The materials that do not fall under the category of copyright such as title of a matter, names, common facts, and ideas.

• Some work in the public domain is not protected.

Facilities Copyright protection gives to the owner:

Generally, copyright protection gives the exclusive rights to ;

• Reproduce the original work.

• Distribute copies of the work to the public.

• Publically displayed the work on various digital media platforms. In case of a sound recording can be uploaded on the audio digital media platforms.

• To transfer work to other authors.

• In the case of original literary work, the 60 years of period is counted from the year following the death of the owner.

• In the case of film, sound, recording and photography, the 60 years period of counted from the date of the publication.

Nature of Copyright Protection:

There are two types of natures of copyright protection and that are comprehended below;

• Automatic: Copyright is an unregistered right, which subjects automatically, as soon as work eligible for the copyright protection is uploaded on some mediums.

• Originality: The work protected need to be new, which means if a work is not copied from other resources but is the result of the application of effort by the creator of the work.

• Exclusion: Copyright ensures the statement of thoughts yet not the thought or idea fundamental a bit of work. Hence, techniques, strategies for activity and scientific ideas are prohibited from copyright protection. In simple terms, the use of the copyrighted material for literature, research and education purposes are exempted from the copyright protection.

Final say:

Copyright protection is a crucial thing for an author or any original work creator. It protects their work from the third parties and maintains the originality until the expire date of copyright protection. It encourages writers, bloggers, photographer, lyricists to create a unique work to impress audiences and at the same time ensure copyright holder to release work publically without worry about infringements.