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Your Guide to Copyright Laws in India

Copyright is the legal right of the owner regarding intellectual property. In simpler terms, copyright provides the right to copy. Only those people can reuse the products to whom the original creators provide the individual right to reproduce the original material and give authorization. Copyright laws do not safeguard the ideas but express them.

Indian Perspective on Copyrights

The Copyright Act, 1957 is about copyright protection in India. The act confers copyright protection by economic and ethical rights of the author.

Registration is not mandatory under Indian law for granting copyright in work. Copyright of original work is created and given in a material form. Registration like this does not include any specific rights or privileges concerning the registered copyrighted work.

Under section 13 of the Copyright Act 1957, copyright protection is subsisted on original literary works, musical works, dramatic works, cinematograph films, artistic works, and sound recording.

Difference between Plagiarism and Copyright Infringement

Copyright violation includes the unlicensed and unauthorized copying of an article that is subject to copyright. Plagiarism is borrowing someone else’s ideas or words without giving proper attribution.

Plagiarism is unethical and violates academic norms, whereas copyright infringement is not legal but quite a well-known event in academics.

Plagiarism is a pang of guilt against the author, but copyright violation is an offense against the copyright holder. Copyright transfer agreements are the standard means in traditional academic publishing.

Plagiarism occurs when people borrow ideas without attribution. Copyright violation happens when a particular theme like writing or image is duplicated. The way to avoid plagiarism is by offering intellectual validation, and copyright is concerned with revenue stream maintenance.

Response of the Indian Judiciary On Copyright Infringement

A copyright owner cannot enjoy the rights unless the court provides stringent infringement. The Indian Judiciary’s approach is entirely satisfactory in this regard. The court suggests that the plaintiff was justified in alleging violation of his artistic work.

As per Section 51 of the Act, Copyright is deemed to be violated when someone permits something for communicating, distributing, selling, or demonstrating of an infringing work unless s/he was unaware or has nothing to believe that this permission may give in to copyright infringement.

Understanding Copyright Infringement

Copyright violation is nothing but the reproduction of copyright-protected materials without the knowledge of the copyright holder. It implies that a third party is breaching the rights conferred to a copyright holder of the authoritative use of a ‘work’ for a given period.

An infringement of copyright occurs when

● Someone directly copies it without consultation from the authority

● While issuing copies to the mass

● Lending or renting it to the public

● Placing the material to the public domain

● While sending it to the public

The secondary violation occurs when someone imports an infringing copy, possesses and reuses it without the necessary permission.

A copyright owner can seek civil remedies in case of violation and lodge a criminal complaint. Civil remedies may include:

● Seeking injunctions to disallow further infringement

● Providing all of the infringing articles to the actual owner

● The copies of the infringing materials can be seized rightfully

● Recovering loss and damages infringer’s account of profits

For criminal complaints, Section 63 of the Copyright Act (1957) states that when someone infringes intentionally or encourages the violation of the copyright of a product or some other rights provided by the Copyright Act shall be alleged with incarceration for a term of a minimum of six months.

In some instances, the duration can be three years and with a charge of Rs. 50,000 to Rs. 2 00,000 as per the severity of the case. When someone is guilty of copyright violation more than once, the term shall be extended to 1 year, and the charge will not be less than Rs.1 00,000.

Therefore, people are supposed to abide by the copyright laws, and any violation of it is a crime. The document that permits one to copy is an IRRO reprographics license. The license not only provides blanket coverage but also helps lower the potential expense. It also reduces the risk of copyright infringement.

How to Avoid Copyright Infringement?

Since copyright violation is a crime, one must abide by the norms of Copyright Infringement. Assuming all the works as copyrighted may help.

● One must not copy, share or alter without seeking permission.

● People should review and retain licensing agreements.

● One must have an IP policy for conducting a business.

● People can seek help from their lawyers.

Importance of Copyright Checker

One can use the free online copyright checker for a thorough check of all their submissions before publication. Thus one can save oneself from the liability of plagiarism. People can use originality checking software to confirm its originality.

Essay copyright checker is helpful in educational spheres. Educators must make their students aware of the severity of punishment and copyright charges. Instructors can make the students understand the implication of plagiarism and copyright legalities.

This advice may help them pursue their academic career and the professional sphere later on.

Online copyright checkers help highlight the exact content. It points out the plagiarized words or sentences, and people can rephrase them accordingly.

Copyleaks plagiarism checker generates percentages of similarity and rate of uniqueness. It is fast, automated, and accurate. Plagiarism checkers like Copyleaks conduct an extensive search across various databases to find similarities in content that provide relevant results so that writers can protect themselves against plagiarism. It uses AI and Machine Learning to do the same. Copyright checkers help check the paraphrasing capabilities. As mentioned earlier, a paper copyright checker highlights the material that matches exactly the original. It points out the problematic areas in cases that have not been appropriately paraphrased. Writers can use the comprehensive plagiarism report and reword the text without proper citation.

Find out what's in your copy.