1. Subject matter of Copyright works.

Introduction

Copyright comes under Intellectual Property Rights; Intellectual property is classified into various types
of assets, like trademarks, patents, industrial designs and geographical indications. Copyright is a right
given on Intellectual creations. It is an exclusive right given by law to print, publish and sell copies of
original work for a certain period. The objective of copyright is to safeguard the author or the creator
from unauthorized reproduction of his creation. The domain of copyright is literary and artistic works,
like writings, musicals and works of fine arts, such as paintings and sculptures, as well as technology-
based works such as computer programs and electronic database.

The Copyright Act, 1957 completely replicates the Berne Convention for Protection of Literary and
Artistic Works, 1886 and the Universal Copyrights Convention after the amendments in 1999, 2002 and
2012 and India is a party to both the conventions. India has signed the Geneva Convention for the
Protection of Rights of Producers of Phonograms and is an active member of the World Intellectual
Property Organization (WIPO) and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO).

The copyright law has originated in 1557 in England. The world’s first copyright law was the Statute of
Anne, enacted in England in 1710. This Act laid down the concept of the author of a work and the
importance of copyright of such work. The Act laid down various rules for the protection of the
copyright. The Statute of Anne was gradually adopted in various other countries, such as the Copyright
Act of 1790 in the United States. There was no uniform legislation for copyright globally until 19 th
century. Finally, in 1886, the Berne Convention was introduced to provide mutual recognition of
copyright between nation states, and to promote the development of international standards for
copyright protection. The United States adopted the treaty in 1988, and the Convention now is adopted
by almost all major countries. This Berne Convention remains in force to this day and continues to
present the basis for copyright law globally.[2]

Subject matter of Copyright

All subject matters protected by copyright are called protected works. Thus, according to Section 13 of
the Copyright Act 1957, it may be subjected for the following works: Original Musical work, Original
Literary Work, Original Dramatic work, Cinematography films, Original Artistic work and Sound
recordings.

Original Musical work –

Musical work was defined as “a work consisting of music and includes any graphical notation of such
work but does not include any work or any action intended to be sung, spoken or performed with the
music”. In 2012 Amendment, there was a grant of statutory license for cover versions. A song typically
contains both literary and musical work. Therefore, the tune and lyrics together forms the song. Lyric of
a song is the literary part and it is protected as a literary work and the writer of the lyrics is the author of
the work. Music accompanying the song is treated as a musical work and the author of the musical work
is the composer of the musical work. So, in the song there can be two rights that are set of rights in the
literary work and rights in the musical work and they are owned by different people. The author of this
right is different people.
Original literary work –

Literary work refers to works that are in writing. The Act does not classify literary work, but we
understand that as work that are captured in writing. The act says that literary work includes computer
programmes, tables, and compilations including computer databases. The literary work need not have
any literary merit and it is not the job of the courts to look into the literary merit of copyright work.

So, courts have found that football fixture lists, mathematical tables, tombola tickets, etc. are capable of
copyright protection. The number of words in a copyrighted material is not an indicator of quality and
the author of copyrighted work is the author who makes the work or who creates the work. There are
certain things that cannot be protected under a copyright. For instance, phrases, names, invented words
and slogans cannot form a part of copyright protections. The names especially used in commerce or in
trade are protected by trademarks and invented work and slogans, for example the slogan which Pepsi
used a while ago “Yeh Dill Mange more”, which is an advertising slogan was held something that can not
protected under the copyright Act.

Secondary or derivative works can also be protected. They can be prospected only if, it involves the right
kind of labor, it should be of such a nature that the effort brings a material change in the work.
Therefore, the work should get changed based on the effort that change should be of the right kind and
the prior work should be different from the secondary work. When the author assigns the copyright to
another person, the new work will be entitled to a copyright as well. Adaptations and abridgment of
existing works can have a copyright; translations can also be entitled to a copyright. Compilations and
collective works can have copyrights. A copyright can subsist in the individual item as well as in the
collection as a whole. For computer programs the source code can be protected as a literary work.

Original dramatic work –

It defined as “including any piece of recitation, choreographic work or entertainment in dumb show, the
scenic arrangement or acting, form of which is fixed in writing or otherwise but does not include a
cinematograph film”. The terms literary and dramatic are used together and the principle applicable to
literary work will be applicable to dramatic work as well. The author of a dramatic work is the person
who authors the work.

Cinematography films –

It means any work of visual recording and includes a sound recording accompanying such visual
recording and sound recording accompanying such visual recording and “cinematograph” shall be
construed as including any work produced by any process analogous to cinematography including video
films. The author of cinematography films is the producer of the films.

Original artistic work –

An artistic work as mentioned in the Act, a painting, a sculpture, a drawing includes a diagram, map,
chart or plan, an engraving or a photograph, and whether or not any such work possesses artistic
quality. A work of architecture is included as an artistic work and any work of artistic craftsmanship can
also come under the ambit of an artistic work. The author of an artistic work is the artist of the artistic
work other than photograph. The photograph is a person who takes the photograph, who is regarded as
the author. Recently there was an issue with regard to a selfie taken by a monkey. The Court has held
that, the person has to be a human being and so far intellectual property rights have only covered
Intellectual work of humans.

Sound recordings –

It means a recording of sound from which such sounds may be produced regardless of the medium on
which such recording is made or the method by which the sounds are produced. The author of sound
recording is the producer of the sound recording. The sound recording may involve musicians, it may
involve singers, but the author is the producer.

The term of copyright varies depending on the kind of work that is protected. Literary, musical, dramatic
and artistic works are protected for the life of the author and after the death for a period of 60 years.
For posthumous work published after the death of the author. It is 60 years from the time the work is
first published. Therefore, cinematograph films sound recording, government works, works of
international organizations all are prospected for 60 years from the work first published.

Here the ownership in copyright may vest in different persons under different circumstances. Like of a
work is created by an employee in the course of his or her employment, the employer owns the
copyright. If the work is created by an independent contractor and the independent contractor signs a
written agreement stating that the work shall be “made for hire,” the commission person or
organization owns the copyright only if the work is a part of the larger literary work, such as an article in
a magazine or a poem or story in anthology; part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, such as
screenplay, a translation, a supplementary work, such as an afterword, an introduction, chart, editorial
note, bibliography, appendix or index; a compilation; an instructional text; a test or answer material for
a test; or an atlas. Works that do not fall within one of these eight classifications constitute works made
for hire only if created by an employee within the scope of his or her employment. If the creator has
sold the entire copyright, the purchasing business or person becomes the copyright owner.

Eastern Book company v/s Navin J. desai

The question involved was whether there is any copyright in the reporting of the judgment of a court.
The Delhi High court held that it is not denied that under section 2(k) of the Copyright Act, a work which
is made or published under the direction or control of any Court, tribunal or other judicial authority in
India is a Government work. Under section 52(q), the reproduction or publication of any judgment or
order of a court, tribunal or other judicial authority shall not constitute infringement of copyright of the
government in these works. It is thus clear that it is open to everybody to reproduce and publish the
government work including the judgment/ order of a court. However, in case, a person by extensive
reading, careful study and comparison and with the exercise of taste and judgment has made certain
comments about judgment or has written a commentary thereon, may be such a comment and
commentary is entitled to protection under the Copyright Act. The court further observed: In terms of
section 52(1)(q) of the Act, reproduction of a judgment of the court is an exception to the infringement
of the Copyright. The orders and judgments of the court are in the public domain and anyone can
publish them. Not only that being a Government work, no-copyright exists in these orders and
judgments. No one can claim copyright in these judgments and orders of the court merely on the ground
that he had first published them in his book. Changes consisting of elimination, changes of spelling,
elimination or addition of quotations and corrections of typographical mistakes are trivial and hence no
copyright exists therein.

Godrej Soaps (P) Ltd v/s Dora Cosmetics Co.

The Delhi High Court held that where the carton was designed for valuable consideration by a person in
the course of his employment for and on behalf of the plaintiff and the defendant had led no evidence in
his favor; the plaintiff is the assignee and the legal owner of copyright in the carton including the logo.

Conclusion

Intellectual Property Rights have been present for a very long time. These are the rights that are given to
people for their creative work. These rights are in the form of patents, copyrights, and trademarks. They
form the intellectual property laws to protect these rights of the people over their creativity. Even
though the intellectual property laws have developed over time, the intent of the laws remains the
same i.e., that the laws encourage the creativity shown by people and for them to reap benefits from
their ideas. The society is never static; it keeps on changing with change in time. The globalization of the
society has led to the advancement in technology. With the advancement in technology, the copyright
infringement has become more easy now-a-days. Therefore, the legislative amendments made in
copyright Act all these years’ help in protecting the authors from any copyright infringement. The higher
level of protection is given to literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work in any country.

2. ‘ORIGINALITY’ UNDER COPYRIGHT LAW

INTRODUCTION

Intellectual Property Rights having the basic concept of protecting a work that has emerged out of the
intellect of a person, needs the work so produced to be solely produced by the inventor and should not
be a copy of another work from another person. Originality in work works as a “sine qua non” of the
copyrighted work. Copyright is the right acquired by a person for a work which is a result of “Intellectual
Labour”. A copyright owner is granted with an exclusive right of restricting anyone else from copying,
reproducing, publishing, or selling any of the work created by him for a specific period of time without
his permission. Originality is the concept of the copyright regime which indicated that the work which is
created or invented is new or novel such that it can be distinguished from another other work so
existing.

The concept of Originality has emerged from the First Case law of University of London Press Ltd v.
Tutorial Press Ltd., In this case-

a. The dispute was about some mathematical question paper made by the University of London
press. The tutorial press worked by collecting question papers from various universities and
publishing the question paper in their book (University of London press being one of them).
b. The university claimed that this was a violation of the copyright of the professors working in the
university so Tutorial Press should desist from the publication of the question papers. For which
the press claimed that the question papers were from the existing body of knowledge. The court
 held that despite the questions paper already exist in a body of knowledge but the formulation
of questions into a question paper requires the indication of effort and skills which qualifies the
question paper to be protected under copyright law. It is because of this case Originality is
considered as the first and the most important condition for a work to be protected under
copyright law.
c. Originality does not mean that the work should be original but it means that some basic efforts
should be given in for making work for such work to be deemed original. Protection of copyright
in a work is necessary for the purpose of protecting a person’s creative expression and to
encourage creative expression so as to promote originality in work and get the best out of
creativities we have available with us.

ORIGINALITY UNDER COPYRIGHT LAW:

According to Section 1(1)(a) of the Copyright, Design and Patent Act 1998 of United Kingdom Copyrights
consists of “originality of literacy, dramatic, artistic work”. Though there is no universal or clear
definition of the concept of originality. The description of originality is very subjective depending upon
the various laws made in any country. According to Section 13 of the Indian Copyrights Act,1957,
copyright is given to the works which show characteristics of:
Original literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic work; Cinematographic films, and; Sound recordings.

By the word “Original”, the law does not talk about some work which is an expression of the original or
inventive idea. Generally, it is considered as originality does not require novelty of expression. In other
words, the law means that the work should originate solely from the author and shouldn’t be subject to
be a copy of someone else’s work.

The interpretation of the word “Originality” has various consequences in various laws around the world
because the question of what can be considered under originality and what not is totally dependent
upon any law made regarding it by different interpretations. It can be said that the degree of creativity
expected to make a work original is still a grey area. There is no clear definition of when will the work be
considered as original by the law. Since there is no definite concept of originality so courts have to
decide on the cases of copyright in violation of originality by various doctrines. The first doctrine used
for concluding the cases of originality violation is-

DOCTRINE OF SWEAT OF BROW:

According to this, an author acquires the rights through simple diligence during the creation of a work.
The author is entitled to such rights on account of efforts and expense put in by him in the creation of
such a work. And such creation must be the work of the author himself and must not be copied from
another source.

DOCTRINE OF MODICUM OF CREATIVITY:

In India, the ‘Doctrine of Sweat of Brow’ was followed for a long time. After the judgment of the English
courts, the supreme court of India observed that the copyright law does not prevent a person from
taking what is useful from an original work with additions, changes, and improvements according to
once needs and market demand. The court held original thought and original research are not necessary
for claiming copyright, even things such as dictionaries, gazettes, etc. can be categorized under copyright
protection.

In the case of Burlington Home Shopping v Rajnish Chibber, the facts were similar to Feist’s case so the
court held that a compilation is copyrightable following the same doctrine followed by the English
courts.

Bombay High Court in its judgment of a newspaper copyright case held that there is no copyright for
happenings and events which are shown in news stories and reporters cannot claim any copyright
infringement for such events because they have reported it first and any idea, information, or
phenomena created by authors own thinking hard work, etc can’t be protected under copyright law.
Hence, there is no copyright protection for news or information per se. it can be concluded that the
main objective of copyright is to protect expression while encouraging others to build freely upon the
ideas and information conveyed in the expression and not to reward a holder of copyright for his labor.
The standard of originality cannot be set on a higher pitch as the majority of the work would fall out of
the preview of copyright similarly it can’t be set too low because the degree of protection of work
conferred by law might degrade. The laws relating to originality are developing in the right direction in
India following the footsteps and taking ideas from the developments of the “modicum of creativity”
doctrine of the USA’s law and the “sweat of brow” doctrine of UK law.

CASE STUDY: -

In the case of Eastern Book Company V. D.B. Modak (2007)

In this case, the Supreme Court discontinued the ‘Sweat of the Brow’ doctrine of UK law and shifted to a
‘Modicum of Creativity’ doctrine of the US law. The facts of the case are that the Supreme Court Case reporter
(SCC), was aggrieved by other parties violating their copyright according to Section 14 of the Copyright Act by
launching software containing the judgments edited and published by SCC along with other additions made by
the editors of SCC.

The concept of “flavor of the minimum requirement of creativity” was introduced in this case. It was held that to
establish copyright, the creativity standard applied is not that the work must be novel or non-obvious, but some
amount of creativity is required in the work to claim a copyright. The Court held that information and facts
stated by the editors of SCC can be given copyright protection because such information so produced requires
the appropriate skills of legal knowledge, of the editor. Thus, this exercise and creation has a sign of a minimum
amount of creativity and enjoy copyright protection. Accordingly, the Court granted copyright protection to the
additions and contributions made by the SCC. The Court also held that the orders and judgments of the Courts
are in the public interest and everybody has a right to use and publish them so no copyright can be claimed on
the same.

3. Legislations governing copyright

Under the Copyright Act, 1957 the term “work” includes a creative work comprising of a painting, a sculpture, a
drawing (including a diagram, a map, a chart or plan), an engraving, a photograph, a piece of architecture or
artistic craftsmanship, writing (including computer programmes, tables, compilations and computer databases),
musical work (including music yet as graphical notations), recording and cinematographic film. In order to stay
pace with the worldwide harmonization requirement, the Copyright Act of 1957 brought copyright law in India
into line with developments within the information technology industry, whether within the field of satellite
broadcasting or computer software or digital technology.

The law of copyright in India not only provides for civil remedies within the type of final injunction, damages or
accounts of profits, delivery of the infringing material for destruction and price of the legal proceedings, etc., but
also makes instances of infringement of copyright, a cognizable offence punishable with imprisonment for a
term which shall not be over six months but which can reach three years with a fine which shall not be but Rs
50,000 but may reach Rs 2,00,000. The Indian Copyright Act, 1957 gives the police authority to register the
complaint (First Information Report, i.e. the FIR) and to act on its own to arrest the accused, search the premises
of the accused and seize the infringing material with non-intervention by the court.

Violation of copyright law by somebody without a license or permission by the owner of the creation is termed
infringement of copyright. There are provisions for such violations and punishments like enhanced fine and
punishment under the Copyright Act. Copyright law provides exclusive legal rights to an author to urge every
kind of advantage on his creation. If you infringe on someone else’s belongings rights by using the copyright of
the author without his or her permission, you will be guilty of infringement. You will be ready to defend yourself
against your unauthorized use of copyrighted material in certain situations. Typically, claiming that you just
didn’t know of somebody else’s copyrighted material doesn’t excuse you.

The Copyright Act, 1957, along with the Copyright Rules of 1958 and also the amendments thereto, are intended
to safeguard the rights and interests of the creators and owners of belongings and to safeguard the interests of
the planet as a full. As per the Section 51 of chapter XI of the Indian copyright act, using any copyrighted work
without the permission of a copyright owner is an infringement of copyright law and also the following instances
can be considered as an infringement of copyright. Somebody who does the infringement of copyright is solely
held answerable for his misconduct like –

Performing publicly with no consent of the owner.

Using copyrighted work for any quite business which brings financial benefit.

Distributing for the aim of trade or import.

Reproduction of considerable a part of copyrighted ad any material form.

Circulating among the unauthorized persons.

Adoption or translation of copyright work with no permission.

International copyright Protection

Copyright protection rules are fairly similar throughout the world due to several international copyright treaties,
the most important of which is the Berne Convention. Under this Treaty, all Member States and there are more
than 100, including virtually all industrialized nations, must grant copyright protection to authors who are
nationals of any Member State. This protection must last for at least the life of the author plus 50 years and
must be automatic without the need for the author to take any legal action to preserve copyright.

In addition to the Berne Convention, contains a number of provisions affecting the protection of copyright in the
signatory countries. Together, the Berne Copyright Convention and the GATT Treaty allow U.S. authors to
enforce their copyright in most industrialized nations and allow U.S. nationals to enforce their copyright in the
U.S. Several international treaties encourage reasonably coherent protection of copyrights from country to
country. They set minimum standards of protection which each signatory country will then apply within the
bounds of its own copyright law. Efforts in the European Union to harmonize copyright law have resulted in a
number of regulations, including the 2001 Copyright Directive in the Information Society.