Protected works and the economic rights of the author - Law of Copyrights

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1. The classes of work (section 13)
2. The bundles of rights (section 14)
3. Exhaustion and the distribution right
4. Software: copies and copyright
5. Term of protection
6. Communication to the public
How this is examined

Cases checked to exist. Read the judgment before quoting a holding.

Every case cited here has been checked to exist — the citation resolves and names the right parties. The propositions attributed to each case have not been verified line by line against the judgment. Case names link through to the full judgment: read it before quoting a holding in an examination answer, and never carry a proposition from notes into court on trust.

Read the question closely. February 2025 asked for the economic rights of the author “with special reference to the scope of protection to different subject matters”. The point is that section 14 does not give one set of rights to every work. Each class has its own bundle, and the bundle is narrower for films and sound recordings than for literary works. An answer that lists rights without tying them to the class of work misses the question.

1. The classes of work (section 13)

Class	Definition (section 2)	Notes
Literary	2(o): includes computer programmes, tables and compilations including computer databases	No literary merit required
Dramatic	2(h): recitation, choreographic work, entertainment in dumb show, scenic arrangement or acting form fixed in writing or otherwise, but not a film	Fixation implied
Musical	2(p): music, including graphical notation; excludes words or action intended to be sung	Lyrics are a literary work
Artistic	2(c): painting, sculpture, drawing, engraving, photograph (with or without artistic quality), work of architecture, and any other work of artistic craftsmanship	Overlap with designs in section 15
Cinematograph film	2(f): any visual recording on any medium, with or without sound, including video films	Derivative work
Sound recording	2(xx): a recording of sounds from which sounds may be produced, regardless of medium	Derivative work

The first four are primary or authorial works and must be original. Films and sound recordings are derivative: they record other works and are protected for the investment of the producer. In civil law countries recordings are a neighbouring right, not a work; India, following the UK model, calls them works.

The design overlap

Section 15 removes copyright from a design registered under the Designs Act, 2000, and from a registrable but unregistered design once an article to which it is applied has been reproduced more than fifty times by an industrial process. In Microfibres Inc. v. Girdhar & Co. (Delhi High Court Division Bench, 2009) upholstery fabric designs were held to be designs, not works of artistic craftsmanship, so the claim failed.

2. The bundles of rights (section 14)

(a) Literary, dramatic and musical works (other than computer programmes)

to reproduce the work in any material form, including storing it in any medium by electronic means;
to issue copies to the public that are not already in circulation;
to perform it in public or communicate it to the public;
to make a film or sound recording of it;
to make a translation or an adaptation, and to do any of the above acts in relation to the translation or adaptation.

(b) Computer programmes

All the rights in (a), plus the right to sell or give on commercial rental, or offer for sale or rental, any copy of the programme. Rental is not restricted where the programme is not the essential object of the rental, such as the software in a hired car.

(c) Artistic works

Reproduction in any material form, including depiction in three dimensions of a two-dimensional work and vice versa; communication to the public; issuing copies not already in circulation; inclusion in a film; adaptation; and these acts in relation to an adaptation. There is no performance right, because an artistic work is not performed.

(d) Cinematograph films

To make a copy of the film, including a photograph of any image forming part of it, or storing it in any medium; to sell or give on rental any copy; and to communicate the film to the public. There is no adaptation right.

(e) Sound recordings

To make any other sound recording embodying it, including storing it electronically; to sell or give on rental any copy; and to communicate it to the public.

The narrower scope of derivative works. For a film or sound recording, the right is against making a copy of that recording. A person who independently shoots the same scene or records the same song again does not infringe the film or the recording (though he may infringe the underlying works). This is why cover versions are possible: section 31C licenses a new recording of the musical and literary works, and the original sound recording is not touched. Literary works are protected against substantial copying of expression in any form.

3. Exhaustion and the distribution right

The right to issue copies applies only to copies “not already in circulation”. Once a copy is lawfully sold, the owner cannot control its resale. That is the first sale or exhaustion principle. The question is whether sale anywhere exhausts the right, or only sale in India.

John Wiley & Sons v. Prabhat Chander Kumar Jain (Delhi High Court, 2010) treated exhaustion as national, restraining sale outside the Indian subcontinent of low-priced editions marked for it.
Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons (US Supreme Court, 2013) went the other way for the US, holding that first sale applies to copies lawfully made abroad.
Article 6 of TRIPS leaves exhaustion to each member.

Rental is treated separately because rental allows repeated use of one copy. In Warner Bros. Entertainment v. Santosh V.G. (Delhi High Court, 2009), the court held that renting out imported DVDs of films without licence infringed the rental right.

4. Software: copies and copyright

In Engineering Analysis Centre of Excellence v. Commissioner of Income Tax, 2021 INSC 137, the Supreme Court held that payments by Indian end-users and distributors for shrink-wrapped software were not “royalty” under the tax treaties. The end-user licence gave only the right to use a copy; it did not transfer any of the section 14 rights. The Court drew the distinction between a copyright and a copyrighted article, and held that the right to reproduce a programme for use on one’s own computer, which section 52(1)(aa) permits, is not a grant of copyright. It is a tax case, but it is now the leading Supreme Court statement on what a software licence conveys.

5. Term of protection

Literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works published in the author’s lifetime: life plus sixty years from the beginning of the calendar year after death (section 22). For joint authors, the last to die.
Anonymous and pseudonymous works, posthumous works, films, sound recordings, government works and works of public undertakings and international organisations: sixty years from publication (sections 23 to 29).
Photographs had sixty years from publication under section 25; the 2012 amendment omitted section 25, so photographs now take the general term in section 22.
Broadcast reproduction right: 25 years; performer’s right: 50 years (sections 37 and 38).

Berne requires a minimum of life plus fifty (Article 7). The EU and US give life plus seventy. India’s sixty years is a middle position adopted in 1992.

6. Communication to the public

Section 2(ff) defines communication to the public as making a work available for being seen or heard or otherwise enjoyed by the public directly or by display or diffusion, whether or not any member of the public actually sees or hears it, and it includes making available so that members of the public may access it from a place and at a time individually chosen by them. That last part implements the making available right of Article 8 of the WIPO Copyright Treaty and covers on-demand streaming. In Tips Industries v. Wynk Music (Bombay High Court, 2019), the court held that the statutory licence for broadcasting in section 31D does not extend to internet streaming services, which must take a voluntary licence.

How this is examined

For the 2025 question, build the answer around the table and the five bundles, then show the consequences: no adaptation right for films, no performance right for artistic works, narrow protection for recordings, exhaustion, and rental. LL.M. marks come from the comparative points (neighbouring rights in civil law, Kirtsaeng) and from Engineering Analysis.