Know All About Copyright Law

Copyright is the exclusive right to copy or reproduce a work in which a copyright subsists, either wholly or partly in any form of material. In details basically this copyright enables the author to protect his work from unauthorized copying or public performance of his work. It is one type of intellectual property rights. What you know about intellectual property. Intellectual properties are those categories of work those are the part of Sections 1 to 7 of Part II of the TRIPS Agreement, like:

• Copyright and related rights.
• Trade Marks
• Patents
• Geographical Indications
• Industrial Designs
• Lay out Designs of Integrated Circuits
• Protection of Undisclosed Information (i.e. Trade Secrets)
• Control of anti-competitive practices in contractual licenses

By Indian Copyright Act 1957 this intellectual property right is being protected, recognized, granted and enforced. This Act protects copyright in the field of literature, drama, art, musical works and cinematograph films.

In the meantime before we go to know about the copyright in details like the copyright duration, its registration and international copyright matters, here I like to tell why at all copyright needed to be emphasized. There is a creative quality in everyman more or less. This quality in given by the Creator, i.e. Almighty God. Every person should have the right to protect or prevent his innovation or creation which is unique in nature. It is the basic right of all of us. Only the person who has created his original work, he only should enjoy the fruits of his labour.

Duration of Copyright: The duration of the copyright of any published work is for the life of the author and same continues for another sixty years from the death of the author. In case of other works like audio records, photographs the duration is sixty years from the date of creation. In case of cinematograph films it is again sixty years from the date of the first public showing.

Registration of Copyright: The registration of copyright is optional. But if you register your creations with the Copyright Officer then it will be easy for you to safeguard your work, protect it from illegal copying and easy to use an enforcement of law in case of any breakage of the copyright of your work.

Criminal Remedies: In order to punish the person who violates the law of copyright there are criminal proceedings for this. The infringement of copyright is a punishable offence with imprisonment for duration of six months to three years. This is also accompanied with a fine of Rs. ranging from 50,000 to 2, 00,000. This also provides the seizure of all duplicating materials or equipments used for illegal copying.

International Copyright: There were two conventions held on copyright law enforcement. India is a signatory of these two conventions held as Berne Convention and Universal Copyright Convention. All the works of the Indian authors are protected in all the other country as well as foreign authors’ work is also protected by the Copyright Law of India.