Dear John,
Thank you for your query! I am Aadil and I will try to answer your question.
Copyright laws and regulations in India are contained in the Copyright Act, 1957. The same defines copyright to be the exclusive rights to do or authorise to do things like copying, translating, reproducing, performing, etc., of a literary, dramatic, artistic or musical work.
For the first question, the Copyright Act describes the process of copyrighting a work in India. According to the Copyright Act, a Copyright Office is established under this Act, which comes under the immediate control of the Registrar of Copyrights.
A register is to be kept at this Copyright Office and it shall contain information such as the title of the work, names and addresses of authors, publishers, and the owners of the copyright and other details as prescribed.
An application has to be made, along with the payment of a fee, by the author, publisher, owner, or any person who wants to copyright a work, for the purpose of entering the particulars of the work in the Register of Copyrights. After such an application is received by the Registrar of Copyrights, he may conduct an inquiry as he may deem fit, before entering the particulars in the Register of Copyrights. This Registrar of Copyrights is appointed by the Central Government.
For the second question, it must be understood that unless one person writes, composes and sings the whole song, he cannot claim copyright over the entire song. This is because a song is not treated as a single piece of work in the Copyright Act, 1957. Composing, writing, and singing the song are treated as different parts and therefore the copyright laws for the same also differ.
COMPOSER
For a music composer, section 2(p) of the Act is important as the same defines a musical work to include any graphical notation of the work but cannot include any words or any action intended to be sung, spoken or performed with the music. A composer is thus the author of this music and may obtain copyright over this music but not on the lyrics.
LYRICIST
The lyrics of a song come under literary work, and therefore the person who writes the lyrics is the author of the same and shall therefore be the first owner of the copyright of the same unless the exceptions mentioned in section 17(a) apply.
SINGER
The person who sings the song comes under the definition of a ‘performer’ as per the section 2(qq) of the same Act. He therefore has the “performer’s right” over this work, meaning he has the right over the visual or sound recording of his performance, and can choose to sell it, convert it into a digital form, issue copies of it to the public, etc. These rights mentioned in section 38 and 38A, shall subsist until fifty years from the date of his performance.
Also, the producer can be the author if said work pertains to a cinematograph film or sound recording.
If someone steals the music you have composed and copyrighted, and uses it to create another song by way of adding new lyrics to it, it shall amount to an infringement of the copyright of the music. Sections 55 and 63 of the Copyright Act discusses the available remedies in a case of copyright infringement. It can range from an injunction, damages, etc., to imprisonment for a term upto three years but not less than six months, along with a fine not less than 50,000 but can be extended upto two lakhs.
I hope this helps. Thank you for your time and patience!
Regards,
Aadil
