Copyright (Amendment) Rules, 2021

The Ministry of Commerce and Industry recently notified Copyright (Amendment) rules, 2021. The amendment has been made to bring the existing Copyright rules in the country with parity with the other relevant legislations.

Current Scenario

Currently, the Copyright regime of India is governed by Copyright Act, 1957 and the Copyright rules 2013.

Why were the amendments made?

The main objective of the amendment of Copyright Rules is to ensure smooth and flawless compliance in the light of technological advancement in digital era. The new rules will help India adopt towards electronic means as primary mode of communication. It is highly important to achieve the goals of Digital India.

What are the amendments made?

  • The Copyright societies will have to make an Annual Transparency Report for each financial year.
  • The amendments have harmonised the Copyright rules with the provisions of Finance Act, 2017. This has been achieved by merging Copyright Board with the Appellate Board.
  • The compliance requirements of registration works have been largely reduced. The applicant now has the liberty to file the first ten and last ten pages of source code with no blocked out or redacted portions.
  • The time limit of the Central Government to respond to an application has been extended. When an applicant applies to get registered as a copyright society, the central government shall now respond in one hundred and eighty days. This has been done to provide enough time so that the application can be comprehensively examined.

What is Copyright?

  • Copyright is a type is intellectual property.
  • It gives the owner exclusive right to make copies of his or her creative work. It can be education, artistic, literary or music.
  • According to World Intellectual Property Organisation, Copyright protects two types of rights. They are Economic rights and moral rights. Economic rights allow the owners to derive financial reward from the use of their works. On the other hand, the moral rights allow authors to take certain actions to protect their link with their work.

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