You may have been told by people to look out for copyright concerns and submit copyright cases nowadays. Why? This is because sometimes people run without ideas one seeks ideas from different sources. Sometimes, inspirations are based on the idea of another that raises eyebrows and demands copyright!
You can safeguard your work with an official copyright notice, which gives you the right to guard your work from theft or misuse. You, as a copyright owner, could even issue an official copyright notice if you suspect that your work may be copied or if someone else violates your copyright. To mail a copyright legal notice in India, the person who is sending it has to be the author of the original.
When you issue an official notice of copyright infringement, the notice should contain all the pertinent details and essential information about how the violation took place.
It is crucial to remember that prior to sending a legal notice, the owner of the copyright must have a reasonable basis to believe that their work has been violated. Since false accusations made against another person are not accepted in court.
To ensure that everything is correctly followed, a competent IPR lawyer will prepare an official notice of copyright infringement.
What is copyright infringement?
Copyright is an integral aspect of Intellectual Property Law. Copyright is the security that the courts grant a person to prevent the theft of the original and only work of the author.
Copyright protection guarantees that the original creator of the idea, or the writer, is given the right respect and recognition for their work. If there was no security, there’s always the possibility of someone stealing work or presenting a different author’s work.
This things generally come under the copyright protection Act:
- Literary works
- Songs
- Computer software
- Dramatic works
- Sound recordings
- Cinematograph films
- Musical works
- Artistic works
If a person violates the copyright rights of another, it is a crime in the eyes of the law.
When to send a legal copyright notice?
One may send a legal copyright notice in these circumstances where the copyright holder:
- There is a reasonable reason to be concerned that their work could be stolen.
- Do you have evidence that a different individual is trying to claim their piece of work to be their own
- Willing to save their work in advance so that no one else could consider violating it.
Features and advantages
- The best thing about it is that you will never have to think again whether someone can steal your work or present it to the world.
- Copyright Act in India (pdf) protects the expression of the ideas and not the idea itself.
- One gets copyright protection only for the original work.
- Copyright protection grants an exclusive right to the author to enjoy their own work and only they can decide whether to reproduce the work or not.
- You should also know and treat computer programs as literary works, which comes under the Copyright Act.
- The term of a copyrighted work is usually 60 years.
- If the work is literary then the 60 years is counted from the year in which the author died.
- For other works such as music and cinematographs, the date is based on the year in which they were released.
- A copyright notice that is legally binding for violation in India could also be filed before the Court if it is needed.
