Why is registration of copyright essential?

Copyright registration safeguards authors’ creative works, such as music, books, manuscripts, software, films, fashion designs, and websites, from being duplicated and used for commercial purposes without their permission, resulting in significant financial loss.

Copyrights fight unauthorised copying or taking someone else’s work without paying for it. The copyright laws make it plain that no individual shall be entitled to Copyright or other comparable rights in any work, whether published or unpublished, unless the terms of the Act are followed. Copyright registration for creative works protects your work from being stolen or duplicated and offers you a legal guarantee over it.

Copyright registration provides your creative work legal status, converting it to Intellectual Property and granting you exclusive legal rights to it.

What are the works protected under copyright law?

  1. Apart from books, literary work includes computer programmes and databases.
  2. Songs, recorded dialogues, and other audio recordings are sound recordings.
  3. Films, Videos, and Cartoon Films are all examples of cinematograph films. It’s a good idea to include creative rights in the various agreements between parties right away.
  4. A painting, a sculpture, a drawing such as a map, chart, or diagram, an engraving, a photograph, architecture/artistic craftsmanship, and dramatic work are examples of artistic work.
  5. “musical work” refers to both staff notation and written music.

What is Copyright Registration’s Purpose?

The goal of copyright law is to encourage authors, musicians, and artists to produce unique works by giving them the sole right to generate them for the public good for a limited time. After the copyright term expires, the works become public domain, and anybody can recreate them without consent. The author’s sole right is a negative right, which means he or she has the right to prevent others from duplicating or reproducing their work.

Copyright, like patent rights, is a restriction that prevents the public from doing something that would be completely legal if it weren’t for the ownership. The monopoly is legal and just in and of itself. It prevents anyone from unfairly taking advantage of the labour of others, whether scientific, creative, or artistic.

All patent and copyright laws safeguard authors, whether they create inventions, works of art, or literary writings. The Acts are to get interpreted in light of this goal. On the other hand, extreme caution must get exercised to prevent them from being used as tools of oppression and extortion.

Under the Copyright Laws, what kind of copyright protection does copyright registration provide?

Registering your creation with the Registrar of Copyright Office is essentially an insurance policy for copyright protection. Without the author needing to do anything, copyright protection occurs immediately when the author fixes the work in a tangible form (for example, when a writer writes its novel).

Why would you need to register for copyright protection if your work is already protected?

The following are four primary reasons why you should file for copyright protection with the Registrar of Copyright Office:

  1. Copyright Registration creates a public record of your copyright and notifies the rest of the world that you have applied for and been granted copyright protection under the Copyright laws.
  2. You can’t sue someone for copyright infringement unless you’ve registered with the Registrar of Copyright Office for copyright protection.
  3. For any violation of a copyright in an unpublished work that occurs before the copyright registration forms are submitted, no statutory damages or attorneys costs will be awarded. Unless the copyright registration is made within three months of the initial publication, the same applies to published works.
  4. It gets considered Prima Facie Evidence in court if you register your work within five years of its creation. If you ever went to court, documentation of your copyright registration with the Registrar of Copyright Office would suffice as prima facie evidence of your ownership of the copyrighted works.

Documents required for copyright registration in India

The primary responsibility of the Copyright Registrar is to act as a guarantor of your Creative Ownership; hence, your creative work and certain signature-required documents, as well as a Notary Declaration in the case of sound recording and cinematography, are required.

Copyright restrictions for GetLegalindia.com

The Copyright Act of 1957 protects Lawconnect, LLC (“Lawconnect”), d/b/a GetLegalindia.com. Lawconnect, Copyright © November 2021 owns all of the information and screens on the Lawconnect Sites, including documents, services, site design, text, graphics, logos, photos, and icons, as well as their arrangement.

All rights not expressly granted get reserved in this document. Any reproduction, distribution, alteration, retransmission, or publication of any copyrighted work is strictly prohibited without the express written approval of the copyright owner unless otherwise required or limited by relevant law.

You may not commercially exploit the information on GetLegalindia.com, transmit it to third parties, or use it to compile directories, mailing lists, or marketing lists. No part of the materials on GetLegalindia.com may get copied, downloaded, stored in a retrieval system, communicated, or otherwise reproduced, stored, distributed, transferred, or used in any form or by any means. Commercial distribution is forbidden.

Except as otherwise stated, all copyright and intellectual property rights in all content presented on the site (which include, but just not limited to, text, audio, video, or graphical images), trademarks, and logos featured on the Site get owned by Lawconnect Inc., its parent, affiliated groups, and associates and get designed to protect under relevant Indian laws. Any infringement will forcefully get resisted and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

GetLegalindia.com honours other people’s intellectual property rights, and we ask that you do the same. GetLegalindia.com has the right to discontinue service and/or access to GetLegalindia.com for users who infringe on the intellectual property rights of others in appropriate circumstances and at our discretion. Please give the following information to GetLegalindia.com’s designated agent if you believe your work is the subject of copyright infringement and appears on GetLegalindia.com.

  1. A person’s signature is authorised to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that purportedly gets infringed, either physically or electronically.
  2. If a single report covers numerous works, the identity of the copyrighted work alleged to get infringed, or a complete list of such works at that site.
  3. Identification of the content alleged to be infringing or the subject of infringing activity that is to get deleted or accessibility to which is to get prohibited at GetLegalindia.com, as well as information generally sufficient to allow GetLegalindia.com to trace the content.
  4. GetLegalindia.com must be able to reach you as the complaining party. Therefore please include your address, phone number, and e-mail address.
  5. A declaration that you do have a good faith belief that the owner of the copyright, its agent, or the law does not authorise the content’s use in the way complained of.
  6. A declaration that the information in the notice is correct and that you are authorised to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that allegedly gets infringed, signed under penalty of perjury.

The following is the contact information for GetLegalindia.com’s agent for notice of allegations of copyright infringement on GetLegalindia.

LawConnect, Inc.
807, Ecostar, Vishveshwar Nagar Rd, Off,
Aarey Rd, Churi Wadi, Goregaon, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400063
info@getlegalindia.com

Please note that the copyright infringements are under Section 51 and 63 of The Copyright Act, 1957.

Counter Notifications

You may choose to send us a counter-notice if you are a user who posted allegedly infringing material and received a notification to that effect from GetLegalindia.com. Such a counter-notice must be in the form of a written message sent to our designated agent that contains the following information. (Please confirm these criteria with your legal counsel.)

  1. Your signature, whether physical or electronic
  2. Identity of the material removed or to which access has been restricted, as well as the place where the material was last seen before it was removed or restricted
  3. A declaration made under penalty of perjury that the content was removed or disabled due to a mistake or misidentification of the content to be deleted or disabled
  4. Your name, address, and telephone number, as well as a declaration that you accept to the jurisdiction of the District Court for the judicial district in which the address is located, or, if your address is outside India, for any judicial district in which GetLegalindia.com may found, and that you will accept service of process from the person who provided notification of allegedly infringing contents, or an agent of such person

The following is the address to which such written notice should get addressed to our designated agent.

By mail:

LawConnect, Inc.
807, Ecostar, Vishveshwar Nagar Rd, Off,
Aarey Rd, Churi Wadi, Goregaon, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400063
info@getlegalindia.com