Salient features of the Copyright Act and a comparison with the UK, US and EU

1. Salient features of the Act as amended

1. Statutory and closed. Copyright exists only under the Act (section 16) and only in the six classes in section 13.
2. No formalities. Copyright arises on creation. Registration under section 45 is optional and gives prima facie evidence of the particulars entered.
3. Author as first owner (section 17), with exceptions for employees, commissioned photographs, portraits and films, Government works and works of international organisations.
4. Rights by class (section 14): a wide bundle for literary, dramatic and musical works, narrower bundles for artistic works, films and sound recordings.
5. Term: life of the author plus sixty years for authorial works (section 22); sixty years from publication for films, sound recordings, anonymous, posthumous and Government works (sections 23 to 29). Photographs moved to life plus sixty in 2012.
6. Author-protective contract rules: written assignments with default terms (sections 18 and 19) and, since 2012, non-assignable royalty rights for authors of works in films and sound recordings.
7. Moral rights of paternity and integrity that survive assignment (section 57), and since 2012, moral rights for performers (section 38B).
8. Neighbouring rights for broadcasters and performers (Chapter VIII).
9. Collective management through registered copyright societies (sections 33 to 36A).
10. Compulsory and statutory licences (sections 31 to 32A, 31C and 31D).
11. An enumerated list of exceptions in section 52, including fair dealing and a wide educational exception.
12. Enforcement: civil remedies, criminal offences (sections 63 to 70), and border measures (section 53).
13. Digital provisions from 2012: technological protection measures and rights management information (sections 65A and 65B), and safe harbour for transient storage (section 52(1)(b) and (c)).
14. Forums: the Registrar of Copyrights and Copyright Office; the Copyright Board until 2017, then the IPAB; since the Tribunals Reforms Act, 2021, the Commercial Court for licences and disputes, and the High Court for rectification (section 50) and appeals from the Registrar (substituted section 72).
15. International application through the International Copyright Order under section 40, which extends protection to works from Berne, UCC and WTO countries.

2. The principles compared

(a) Subject matter and originality

India and the UK protect only listed classes. The US protects “original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression” (17 U.S.C. § 102(a)) and gives eight categories as examples. EU law, after Infopaq International v. Danske Dagblades Forening (CJEU, 2009) and Cofemel v. G-Star Raw (CJEU, 2019), treats any subject matter that is the author’s own intellectual creation as a work, with no aesthetic test. The UK took over that test while a member state, and the Court of Appeal applied it in THJ Systems v. Sheridan (2023). On originality, Eastern Book Company v. D.B. Modak, 2007 INSC 1266, rejected both pure sweat of the brow and the US creativity standard of Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service (US Supreme Court, 1991) in favour of a middle path of skill and judgment.

(b) Formalities

Berne Article 5(2) forbids formalities as a condition of protection. India, the UK and the EU comply fully. The US keeps a domestic formality: a US work must be registered (or refused registration) before suit (17 U.S.C. § 411(a); Fourth Estate v. Wall-Street.com, US Supreme Court, 2019), and statutory damages and attorney’s fees need timely registration. India has no statutory damages at all.

(c) Ownership and contracts

All four give works made in employment to the employer, but the US goes further: under the “work made for hire” doctrine the employer is the author. To protect authors who assign, the US allows termination of transfers after thirty-five years (17 U.S.C. § 203); the EU’s Digital Single Market Directive (2019/790), Articles 18 to 22, requires fair remuneration, transparency and a right of revocation. India’s tools are the section 19 default rules, the section 19A revocation for non-use, and the 2012 royalty provisos. The UK has the fewest controls on freedom of contract.

(d) Term

The EU fixed life plus seventy years in the Term Directive (now 2006/116/EC); the UK followed, and the US moved to the same term in 1998. India extended the term from fifty to sixty years in 1992 and has resisted the further step, though trade negotiators press for it. Berne and TRIPS require only life plus fifty.

(e) Moral rights

India is closer to France than to England. Section 57 rights need no assertion, cannot be assigned, and were given wide reach in Amar Nath Sehgal v. Union of India (Delhi High Court, 2005). The UK requires the attribution right to be asserted (CDPA section 78) and lets all moral rights be waived. The US gives moral rights only to authors of works of visual art under the Visual Artists Rights Act, 1990. The EU has not harmonised moral rights.

(f) Exceptions

India, the UK and the EU list their exceptions; the EU list in Article 5 of the InfoSoc Directive (2001/29/EC) is exhaustive, and every exception must pass the three-step test. The US uses an open fair use standard with four factors (17 U.S.C. § 107), recently narrowed for commercial reuse in Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith (US Supreme Court, 2023). India’s list is long and generous to education, as the DU photocopy case showed, but it cannot adapt to new uses such as text and data mining, for which the UK (non-commercial research, 2014) and the EU (DSM Directive, Articles 3 and 4) have specific exceptions.

(g) Neighbouring rights and databases

The EU treats performers, phonogram producers, film producers and broadcasters as holders of related rights, not authors, and gives makers of databases a separate sui generis right (Directive 96/9/EC). India, like the UK and the US, calls recordings and films works. India has no database right; databases are protected only as compilations if original.

(h) Government works and enforcement

US federal Government works have no copyright (17 U.S.C. § 105). India protects Government works (section 2(k), with the Government as first owner) but frees the reproduction of statutes and judgments under section 52(1)(q). On enforcement, India’s criminal law is broader than TRIPS requires: after Knit Pro International v. State of NCT of Delhi, 2022 INSC 621, the offence under section 63 is cognizable and non-bailable.

How this is examined

“Discuss the salient features of the Copyright Act, 1957” wants the fifteen points in section 1, each with its section and the amendment that introduced it. “Compare the basic principles of Indian copyright law with the UK, US and EU” wants the table followed by four or five of the headed comparisons, ending with the thesis above. Use the history note for the amendments and the theories note for why the traditions differ.