The intellectual property rights regime in India, as well as globally, aims to secure the right of ownership over original ideas. This gives authors, producers, and writers the right to profit from their work. The Indian Copyright Act, 1957, provides for the grant of copyrights in the Indian landscape of intellectual property rights. While no copyright can be granted for an idea or imagination, the law does protect the expression or manifestation of the idea. As a result, copyrights exist in literary works such as books, plays, scripts, music, lyrics, computer programmes, and so on. This is not all, for those in the creative arts space – copyright registration in India can also be sought for sculptures, artwork, and photographs.
As a result, a musical work, sound recording, or original composition can be granted copyright in India. The only other requirement, aside from originality, is that the creation be tangible. This means that the creation should be on a medium that can be felt, heard, or touched with ordinary senses, removing any possibility of granting copyrights to mere ideas. Thus, musical works expressed as a sound or written notations of musical notes are broadly protected by copyright. This post focuses on how to obtain privacy and terms for a sound recording, the benefits it provides, and the documentation work that you should keep on hand to expedite the process.
The copyright for sound recordings and composition can be easily obtained based on the Copyrights Act and various court decisions. The musical work or sound to be granted copyright must be original and must be reduced to a form that can be printed, reduced to writing, graphically produced, or reproduced. This means that the law expects the melody of an arrangement on individual elements consisting of various components such as pitch, duration, timbre, and volume to be expressed in a tangible form.
As a general rule, copyright does not exist in the case of a sound recording and composition unless the work is first published in India, or if the work is published outside of India unless the author is a citizen of India. For unpublished work, the author must be an Indian citizen at the time of creation.
As a musical work's copyright includes other elements, such as lyrics, which can be protected by literary work copyright, sounds for which a musical work's copyright is sought will not be granted if they infringe on the right of any other copyright, such as the author of its lyrical work. However, two separate copyrights in the same work can subsist, where each owner of the copyrighted work retains exclusive ownership over their specific work.
It should be stated that in the case of a musical work, the Copyright Act considers the "composer" of the musical work to be the author, capable of receiving copyright protection. If the recording and composition are done under contractual terms, such as by commissioning a lyricist, singer, or other artist, the employer who commissions the agent is considered the first owner of the copyright.
Before beginning, one should understand why they need a copyright for your sound recording. The copyright grant establishes a legal claim to the work and thus serves as an important public record document of ownership. It enables the copyright holder to sue an infringer for unauthorised use of the work and to seek statutory and punitive damages for the harm caused by such reproduction. The copyright grant from the Registrar of Copyrights also serves as prima facie evidence of copyright registration in any court. Also, take a look at the copyright sound recording form.
The Registrar of Copyrights is the issuing author for copyrights in India. The procedure for registration is as follows:
The following documents will be essential to getting copyright in your sound recording work:
Vakilsearch can help you get copyright for your sound recording with the guidance of its experts. The various documentation and the processes can easily be handled by our team and we make sure that the process is expedited. If you have any queries regarding the process our team is eager to provide constant support to resolve them.