Copyright is the right to copy. It means copyright gives you the right to make copies of your work. It is a form of protection granted by law to your original literary, artistic, educational or musical work from unauthorized use or its duplication. It is a designation of YOUR intellectual property which you create through your thought process in the form of paintings, illustrations, sculpture, photographs, books, articles, poems, movies, songs, recordings, logo designs, website content, software code, and therefore the like. It protects the original expression of an idea in any creativity, but not the idea itself. The duration of a copyright is your lifetime and it expires in 60 years after your death.

          Some countries require certain statutory formalities to establishing copyright, while others recognize copyright in any finished work without any formality. India is one of the countries where registration of a copyright is voluntary. You automatically obtain copyright in your work. It gets recognized and protected from the moment it is completely created. You can proudly place the copyright symbol © on an original piece of work you create without registration. However, legality has its own pivotal role to play. Copyright registration provides some advantages to you over an unregistered author or artist –

1. It validates the ownership.
2. A formal establishment of a public record.
3. It allows bringing an action for infringement.

          In the copyright infringement case against Chhapaak movie earlier this year, in January 2020, a writer, Rakesh Bharti had filed a lawsuit against the director, Meghna Gulzar and Deepika Padukone for their upcoming film Chhapaak. He alleged that he had the right to bring the story of the acid attack survivor in the cinema. He claimed that he had shared a copy of his script with a studio before the making of the film. He demanded the credit for it as a screenplay writer for the movie. But Meghna argued that he was not entitled to the copyright because he merely had an idea and that too based on a story available in the public domain. As copyright law does not protect ideas or concepts the case was dismissed by the Bombay high court.

          Ownership is usually in dispute over copyrights. For a copyright owner to become eligible for an award of statutory damages, his/her copyright must be registered prior to the legal issue. Registration is extremely valuable because providing damages in a case of copyright infringement can often be a difficult task. Copyright infringement is piracy where someone takes your work without your permission and copies, sells or posts it. When your copyright is unregistered you get to have no right to invoke legal measures to prevent and penalize the one who steals it. You usually cannot sue for copyright infringement before registration of your work with the Copyright office.

“I think intellectual property is more like land, and copyright violation is more like the trespass. Even though you don’t take anything away from the landowner when you trespass, most people understand and respect the laws that make it illegal. The real crime in copyright violation is not the making of the copies, it’s the expropriation of the creator’s right to control the creation.”  – Brad Templeton.

The copyright law is created with an intent to encourage creativity. Thus, registration of copyright is advisable, particularly to copyright owners who want to go a long way with their ownership, whose work has market value or whose work is important to business operations or other profit-seeking activities.

By

Deepika Pandey

2nd Year LLB Student

Bharati Vidyapeeth New Law College