Writing something new opens up a way for you to register your works under the Indian Copyright Act. But this also includes multiple issues like plagiarism, co-authorship, author’s rights etc. In certain scenarios co-authorship is one of the most important aspect while registering the copyright. It is also known as “Work of Joint Authorship”. Work of Joint Authorship means a work created by the collaboration of two or more authors in which the contribution of one author is not distinct from the contribution of the author or authors. Those authors are joint owners of the work they have created; unless they have certain understanding between them regarding the distribution of the credits. Such work is protected under the copyright laws of India.

            The protection for the creative work of the authors is provided protection under the copyright act in India. As per Indian copyright act there are certain conditions to confer the work under joint ownership. These conditions are applied to all the authors. Those conditions are as follows:

1. In case of a published work, the work has to be first published in India; or if the work is first published outside India, the author has to be the citizen of India on the date of publication; or if the author is dead, he/she was a citizen of India at the time of his/her death;
2. In the case of an unpublished work, other than a work of architecture, the author, at the time of creating the work has to be a citizen of India or domiciled in India;
3. In the case of a work of architecture, the work has to be located in India.

These basic conditions are supposed to be fulfilled if you want to register your work in India, while conferring the work created as authors. While we come at the point of sharing credits; it is always stated that the rights or credits of the same are equally assigned. This rule applies to all authors unless there is an agreement present between the authors regarding their share in the credits; and after the death of any one of the authors his/her rights will relegate to his/her legal representatives and not the survivors i.e., the remaining authors from the joint authorship.