What is Copyright
Copyright is a type of intellectual property rights which gives the owner sole right to copy his/her creative work for a limited time period. Copyrights can be given to artistic work, literary work, educational work or musical work. Copyrights include the right to reproduce the work, to prepare derivative works, to distribute copies, and to perform and display the work publicly.
The essential target of copyright is to prompt and prize creators, through the arrangement of property rights, to make new works and to make those works accessible to general society to appreciate. The hypothesis is that by conceding certain elite rights to makers, which permit them to secure their inventive neutralizes burglary, they get the advantage of monetary prizes and people, in general, get the advantage of the imaginative works that may not, in any case, be made or scattered.
In India copyrights are governed by The Indian Copyright Act, 1957. Under the Copyright Act, 1957 the expression “work” incorporates a masterful work containing an artwork, a figure, a drawing (counting an outline, a guide, a diagram or plan), an etching, a photo, a work of engineering or creative craftsmanship, emotional work, scholarly work (counting PC programs, tables, aggregations and PC databases), melodic work (counting music just as graphical documentations), sound chronicle and cinematographic film.
So as to stay up with the worldwide prerequisite of harmonization, the Copyright Act, 1957 has aligned the copyright law in India with the improvements in the data innovation industry, regardless of whether it is in the field of satellite telecom or PC programming or computerized innovation. The altered law has additionally made arrangements to secure entertainer’s privileges as imagined in the Rome Convention.
Copyright Protection to Dimensional Art
Under Section 14(c) of The Indian Copyright Act, 1957 provision to reproduce the work in any material form including depiction in three dimensions of a two-dimensional work or in two dimensions of a three dimensional work is given.
Section 14(c)(i)(C) of the Copyright Act, 1957 characterizes the importance of the copyright that stays alive in the artistic works expresses that the ‘depiction in two-dimensions of three-dimensional work’ is the sole right of the copyright owner or a person authorised by the owner. Persumably, however, the rule intends to constrain the selective right of copyright proprietors in regard of their copyrighted creative work to ‘[pictorial] portrayal in two-dimensions of a three-dimensional work’- it would almost certainly strain the sensibilities of copyright law to incorporate ekphrasis and other printed or verbal depictions of ensured aesthetic works inside the extent of the right.
Issues invoicing the depiction of works have been litigated in both the US and in England, or would appear that pictorial depictions of three-dimensional works are generally considered to be copyrightable although on the case of pictorial depictions of two-dimensional works, opinions have been sharply divided. In India, Section 14 of the 1957 Copyright Act makes it abundantly clear that the making and publishing of visual reproductions of protected artistic works ordinarily requires permission of the owners of copyright in those works.
Apart from asserting that the ‘depiction in the two-dimensions of a three-dimensional work’ is the exclusive right of the copyright owner, amongst the rights in Sections 14(a),(b) and (c) of the Copyrights Act 1957 are also the rights of copyright owners to communicate to the public literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works in which they own the copyright, to issue copies of such works which are not already in circulation, to depict the works which they own copyright in cinematograph films, and to adapt the works.
How to file application for Copyright of artistic work
To get copyrights for artistic works one can either file application offline or online. By offline method, an application is made for registration of Copyright of an “artistic works” in the way provided under Chapter XVIII – Schedule I by filling Form XIV, Statement of Particulars, Statement of further Particulars of Copyright Rules 2013.
By online method, applications can be registered on the official website of the Copyright Office[1]. Then click on the “e filing of application” tab, and proceed thereon by filling up the online registration form XIV, Statement of Particulars, and Statement of further Particulars.
One have to pay Rs.2000 as fees for registration of a copyright in artistic category set by government for artistic works which are being used or capable of being used in relation to any goods or services and Rs.500 for artistic works which are not being used or are not capable of being used in relation to any goods or services.
Enforcement of Copyrights in India
The law of copyright in India not just accommodates common cures as permanent injunction, damages or accounts of profits, conveyance of the encroaching material for pulverization and cost of the lawful procedures. and so forth yet additionally makes occurrences of encroachment of copyright, a cognizable offence culpable with detainment for a term which will not be under a half year yet which may reach out to three years with a fine which will not be not as much as Rs 50,000 (approx. US$ 800) to Rs 2,00,000 (approx. US$ 3,000). For the second and resulting offenses, there are arrangements for upgraded fine and discipline under the Copyright Act. The Indian Copyright Act, 1957 offers capacity to the police specialists to enroll the Complaint (First Information Report, ie, FIR) and follow up on its own to capture the denounced, search the premises of the blamed and hold onto the encroaching material with no intercession of the court.
Some legal cases in which Section14(c) of The Copyright Act 1957 was cited
- IPEG INC. vs Kay Bee Engineers, 7th April, 2016[2]
- Ritika Private Limited vs Biba Apparels Private Limited on 23 March, 2016[3]
- Microfibers Inc. vs Girdhar & Co. & Anr. on 28 May, 2009[4]
Conclusion
The Copyright Act envisages the objectives of the government to protect the intellect artistic work of individuals. It lays down the proper procedure to register the work and ensure that it is not copied and threatened. This act has evolved as a tool to protect artistic works from fraud, copy and illegitimate distribution. It takes into consideration the importance of intellectual property of the developer. It provides a due process of enforcement of the copyright norms and thereby reinstates the value of research, personal contribution and development.
[1] http://copyright.gov.in/UserRegistration/frmLoginPage.aspx
[2]https://www.casemine.com/judgement/in/5ac5e3534a93261a1a74dbc7
[3]https://indiankanoon.org/doc/20292476/
[4]https://indiankanoon.org/doc/112937069/
This article is authored by Madhur Bansal, First-Year, B.A. LL.B student at ILS Law College, Pune.
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