Answered: Your Most Burning Questions About Copyright Act 1957.

Copyright is basically the individual right of an author to dispose of his/her work in return for remuneration. According to Christopher Scarles, " subject to certain exception, it is ownership of and right of control over all possible ways of reproducing a work".

Copyright  is a form of intellectual property protection provided by the laws of Indian authors of original works of authorship such as literary works including dramatic, musical, artistic and certain other creative works.

Copyright  is an exclusive right of the copyright holder. Its main objective is to encourage the authors, music composers, singers to create their original piece of work by granting them exclusive rights. Copyright helpful for the government in levying and collecting royalty and pay the same to the copyright holder. A copyright holder can prevent others from copying, performing or otherwise using the work without his or her consent.

The Copyright Act 1957, this act is applicable from 21 January 1958. This act has been amended in 19883, 1984, 1992, 1994, 1999, 2010 and 2012.

Duration of copyright act 1957: 

The duration of copyright is not fixed. For example of India the copyright of a book remains in force till 60 years after the death of the author. It various from country to country.

Salient features of Copyright Act 1957:

1. Creation of Copyright Board: Copyright office and a Copyright Board was created to make registration process of copyright easy and to address the related to copyright and compulsory licensing of copyright.
2. Ownership of Copyright and the Right of the Owner: According to the act the author creator is the first owner of the work. In case of musical work the composer is the author or creator,in case of cinematograph film the producer is the author/owner whereas in case of government work normally the concerned Government body is the author.
3. Term of Copyright: The general term of copyright is 60 years. Term of copyright for musical, dramatic and artistic works, except for photograph is 60 years from the year in which the author died.
4. Copyright Societies: The Copyright (Amended) Act,1994 has made the provision of the copyright societies. A copyright society is a registered administrative body that looks after the management and protection of copyrights.
5. Right of Broadcasting OrganizatIon and of Performer's: It gives protection to the performer's. The performer's right shall subsist until fifty years from the beginning of the calendar year next following the year in which the performance is made.
6. Registration of Copyright: Register of copyrights and entries therein, indexes,forms and inspection of register, correction of entries in the register, rectification of register by the Copyright Board.
7. Copyright Office and Copyright Board: The Copyright Office shall be under the immediate control of the Registrar of Copyrights and shall have two officials,i.e. Registrar and Deputy Registrars of Copyrights. The constitution of the Copyright Board and its powers and procedures are described.
8. Definition of work: It defines clearly various categories of work in which copyright can subsist and the scope of the rights. According to the Act, copyright subsists in the following classes of work- artistic, dramatic, musical, literary work, cinematograph films and sound recordings.
9. Licences  of copyright: The copyright owner can transfer his/her rights to another person in return of some fixed royalty. The owner can transfer the all rights or some of the rights to the Assignee, the owner can license his rights to another person as well. It is known as compulsory Licensing. It helps in curving misuse of rights by the owner.
10. Infringement of Copyright: Copyright is infringed and certain activities not considered infringement of copyright are elaborated. Both are being reproduced here verbatim to make you aware of the facts.

     

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