Copyright

Copyright Registration in India gives the creators of a wide range of material, such as literature, art, music, sound recordings, films and broadcasts, economic rights enabling them to control use of their material in a number of ways, such as by making copies, issuing copies to the public, performing in public, broadcasting and use on-line. It also gives moral rights to be identified as the creator of certain kinds of material and to object to its distortion or its mutilation. (Material protected by copyright is termed a “work”.)
• In the case of a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work, the general rule is that the author, i.e. the person who created the work, is the first owner of the economic rights under copyright. However, where such a work is made in the course of employment, the employer is the first owner of these rights, unless an agreement to the contrary has been made with the author.
• In the case of a film, the principal director and the film producer are joint authors and first owners of the economic rights and similar provisions as referred to above apply where the director is employed.
In the case of a sound recording the record producer is the author and first owner of copyright; in the case of a broadcast, the broadcaster; and in case of a published edition, the publisher.
Copyright owners have the exclusive right to do or authorise the doing of any of the following in respect of a work or any substantial part thereof:

A. In case of a literary, dramatic or musical work not being a computer program,
• to reproduce the work in any material form including the storing of it in any medium by electronic means;
• to issue copies of the work to the public not being copies already in publication;
• to perform the work in public, or communicate it to the public;
• to make any cinematographic film or sound recording in respect of the work;
• to make any translation of the work;
• to make any adaptation of the work;
• to do, in relation to a translation or adaptation of the work, any of the acts specified in relation to the work in sub clauses (i) to (vi)
B. In the case of a computer program,
• to do any of the acts specified in para (A) above.
• to sell or give on hire, or offer for sale or hire a copy of the computer program, regardless of whether such copy has been sold or given on hire on earlier occasions. It may be noted that Copyright confers a number of rights, some or all of which can be granted to others either exclusively or non-exclusively.

In India, the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) of computer software is covered under the Copyright Law. Accordingly, the copyright of computer software is protected under the provisions of Indian Copyright Act 1957.
According to this Act, the infringer can be tried under both civil and criminal law. According to section 16 of this Act, it is illegal to make or distribute copies of copyrighted software without proper or specific authorisation. The only exception is provided by section 52 of the Act, which allows a backup copy purely as a temporary protection against loss, distribution or damage to the original copy. The 1994 amendment to the Copyright Act also prohibits the sale or hiring, or any offer for sale or hire of any copy of the computer program without specific authorisation of the Copyright holder.