Copy Right

There could be slight variations in the composition of the rights depending on the work. The Copyright Act, 1957 protects original Literary, Dramatic, Musical and Artistic works and Cinematograph films and Sound recordings from unauthorized uses. Unlike the case with Patents, Copyright protects the expressions and not the ideas. There is no copyright in an idea.

Importance of copyright

Copyright ensures certain minimum safeguards of the rights of authors over their creations, thereby protecting and rewarding creativity. Creativity being the keystone of progress, no civilized society can afford to ignore the basic requirement of encouraging the same. Economic and social development of a society is dependent on creativity.

The copyright provides the protection to the efforts of

• Writers
• Artists – Artistic work (a painting, a sculpture, a drawing (including a diagram, map, chart or plan), an engraving or a photograph, Artistic craftsmanship, Logo, Monogram, Design whether or not any such work possesses artistic quality.
• Designers
• Dramatists – (Drama, Skit, Play, Movie etc)
• Musicians – “Musical work” means a work consisting of music and includes any graphical notation of such work but does not include any words or any action intended to be sung, spoken or performed with the music. A musical work need not be written down to enjoy copyright protection.
• Architects
• Producers of Sound recordings – “Sound recording” means a recording of sounds from which sounds may be produced regardless of the medium on which such recording is made or the method by which the sounds are produced. A phonogram and a CD-ROM are sound recordings
• Cinematograph films – Means any work of visual recording on any medium produced through a process from which a moving image may be produced by any means and includes a sound recording accompanying such visual recording and “cinematograph” shall be construed as including any work produced by any process analogous to cinematography including video films.
• Website, Web contents, Home page
• Computer software

Advantage for a copyright holder 

• Any business entity can not copy Logo, Style, Font, Get-up, Color, Brand name.
• Copyright certificate (Brand name )  is valid for lifetime
• If any one duplicates the copyrighted work – copyright holder can file a police complaint to stop the misuse.
• The complaint / civil suit can be filed where the owner of the copyright is residing

For Example: if a copyright holder is residing at Bangalore and the person who is copying the brand at Chennai, then copyright holder can file case at Bangalore.To duplicate the work in any form including the storing of it in any medium like electronic means.

In case of computer application programmes the rights includes to sell / hire, any copy of the computer application programme