Copyrights of Music in India

Dec 2022

Music is an art more specifically an intangible form of art. Copyrighting a song or a melody protects the basic right of the creator. The copyright also assist the creator financially. In order to ask for copyright the creator needs to file a registration. Once the creator gains the copyright, any infringement to the copyrighted subject will be punishable offence. No matter whether it is tangible and intangible, everything that is created by a person is eligible to be claimed legally. The person who has conceived the idea has the full right on his or her creation.

A brief idea about the copyright law in India

In India there is a law called The Copyright Act 1957 and the amendment was passed in 2012. Under the act the registration related to file copyright are supervised by Copyright Office. The registrar appointed by the central government takes care of all application. Coming to the validity of the law, once the work has earned its copyright then it will be recognized worldwide as per the rule of Berne Convention. According to the Berne Convention, the copyrighted work will belong to its creator for 60 years, and the year will be counted after the death of the creator.

Procedure to register a song

The creator need to record the song to make it a tangible work
To register the wok the creator needs to visit the office physically or go to the website
To file the registration the creator needs to pay registration fee
Then the creator needs to submit the work to the council
The creator needs to wait for the process to complete

Right to the creator

According to section 38 of the act, for a time period of 50 years a commercially recorded song in India will not be published with the consent of the creator. If the consent is give the creator will get the royalty for the work.

Punishment for breaching the right

A person commits a crime like infringing the copyright then the person will be considered as criminal. And criminal is eligible to be punished under the act, and as per the act the punishment can be imprisonment to three years. Apart from that accused will have to pay up to two lakh rupees.

So, it can be concluded that, if anyone create something original and unique then it is essential to register for copyright.

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