Copyright Filing

Introduction

Copyright marks the legal territory around anything stemming from the creativity of the human mind, preserving the individuality of expression, when an idea is materialized into physical form, but not the idea itself. It makes up a form of intellectual property but for books, music, art, etc. Copyright reserves the right to distribute, reproduce, or replicate the expression, within the author/creator itself, limiting access of others to the same. Essentially, others are not granted permission to copy the work in question, without explicit approval or authentication by the author/creator.

The Indian law, under the aegis of The Copyright Act, 1957, gives the author/creator of the work exclusive rights for activities relating to the work, as stated above, including the right to extend authorization/creation to another party for the purpose of commercial distribution. In order to be awarded a registration of Copyright, it is necessary that the work be original, based on the creative expression of the idea, and must have the ability to be fixed in a tangible form. Copyright registration is deemed to be necessary, in today’s times, to restrict wrongful gain to the benefit of someone else, since the sanctity of any unpublished/published original work can be jeopardized by free and accessibility over the internet and guards the goodwill.

Documents Required

The basic requirement for instituting the procedure for filing Copyright Registration are:

1. Details of the Candidate: Along the lines of Name, Address, and Nationality (ID Proof).
2. Nature of Applicant’s interest in Copyright Application: Whether the applicant is an Author/Creator or representative of the Author/Creator.
3. Soft copies and/or CDs: Must provide a digital copy of whatever work is to be published.
4. Trademark Registration Certificate: In case of seeking a Copyright License for any artistic work (Search Certificate).
5. Power of Attorney: In case the author/creator is pursuing copyright registration through legal counsel.
6. NOC from Publisher: In case the work published and publisher are different from the applicant.
7. NOC from any person whose work is featured on the work.
8. KYC of the Author/Creator.
9. 2 copies of the work, physical.
10. Nature of Work: Class and Description, Title, Language, and Date of Publication (if any).

Procedure

The procedure for filing of Copyright Registration is as follows:

• An application including all the particulars of the work and Statement of the Particulars is to be sent to the Registrar of Copyright Office, along with the prescribed fee. Separate applications for separate works are to be made, as applications for multiple works cannot be clubbed into one.
• This application is to be signed duly, by the Applicant as well as the Advocate.
• Post the submission of the application, the Registrar will issue a Diary No., which is followed by a mandatory period of 30 days which is allotted for any objections to be raised against the registration of applied copyright.
• After the completion of a period of 30 days, if no objections are received, an official scrutinizer will assess the application for discrepancies and on ruling out any so, the registration shall be executed, by sending an extract to the Registrar of Copyrights to create a requisite entry in the Register of Copyright.

Author: Prishita Chadha, a 4th-year student of  Symbiosis Law School, NOIDA, intern at IP and Legal Filings and can be reached at support@ipandlegalfilings.com