What are copyright laws?

 

What are copyright laws? 

By swatee shukla

Copyright is a set of exclusive rights granted to the author or creator of original work, including the right to copy, distribute and adapt the work. The copyright law aims to strike a balance between the rights of the author and the public by proving the author with the sole rights over his work and then proving for the work to lapse into the public domain after a specific period of time. Copyrights are generally exercised over the subjects of literary work; dramatic work; musical works; artistic works; cinematographic films; sound recordings. The modern form of copyright law first took shape in Europe, where governments attempted to regulate the output of printers. 

The copyright act, of 1957 provides copyright protection in India. It confers copyright protection on the economic and moral rights of the author’s work. The economic rights refer to the rights in respect to literary, dramatic, and musical work, to reproduce the work in any material form, to issue copies of the work to the public, to perform the work in public or communicate it to the public, to make any cinematograph film or sound recording in respect of the work, and to make any translation or adoption of the work. Moral rights include the right of paternity and the right of integrity. The right of paternity refers to the right of the author to claim the authorship of the work and the right to prevent all others from claiming authorship of his work. Right of integrity empowers the author to prevent distortion, mutilation, or other alterations of his work, or any other action in relation to the said work, which would be prejudicial to his honor or reputation. Copyright is a right granted over the expression of an idea, although not over the right itself. Copyright is a monopoly right, albeit for a limited period of time. A monopoly right granted by the law gives the monopoly holder ( in this case the author of the work under copyright) the bundle of powers to prevent anyone else from reproducing, performing, or making derivative works from the same and from communicating the work to the public.  There is no process of registration of the work i.e. as soon as you create the work, and put it down in a form- known as ‘fixing’ – that falls under any of the categories specified, it becomes a copyrighted work. However, the copyright over the subject matter does not last forever. The term of the copyright over the subject matter extends to the life of the author plus 60 years after that. 

Author and ownership of copyright- the author is the one who creates the work, and acquires copyright and a moral right over his creation.  He is the owner of the work, and if decides to assign the copyright to someone else, or license the rights to the work, he loses that aspect of ownership. 

Infringement of copyright- copyright infringement is the unauthorized or prohibited use of works covered by copyright law. It violates one of the copyright owner’s exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work in public, or to make derivative works. Infringement of copyright can give rise to civil or criminal remedies.