There have been too many copyright issues in the recent times, either between the producer or the director of the film with regard to ownership of copyright or between say, a scriptwriter and the director. This got me thinking about the rights of the different people who contribute toward making a movie, well a complete movie. There is the music composer, the lyricist, the sound recorder, the record label company to name a few who are individuals who come up with creative ideas and turn them into their works. These people mostly either assign or license the rights that subsist in their work to the producer in return for a royalty. However, it isn’t as easy as it seems to be. There are many questions that arise at the time of assignment and especially after it, questions involving moral rights and future rights and the like. Well, time to find out the answers!

Transfer of copyright:

All of us are aware that the first author of the work is the owner of the work unless he assigns someone else to be the owner for a specific thing (assigning your work to be used in movies) and for a specific period of time. The owner of the copyright in an existing work may assign his work to any person the copyright either wholly or partly either for the whole term of the copyright or part of the term.

Transfer of future copyright:

Section 18(1) of the Copyright Act also says that the any prospective owner of a future work may assign his copyright. However, the recent amendment of 2012 made it amply clear that such an assignment will not extend to those mediums or modes of exploitation which did not exist at the time of the assignment. Modes of exploitation constantly keep changing due to scientific developments. As in, in the earlier days there used to be only video cassette recorders which were played and now there is MP3 players, iPods and other music players that exist. Similarly, we cannot foresee the technological developments that are yet to come and therefore, the assignment of copyright that is made today will only cover those modes of exploitation that are available today.

This new piece of legislation has come as a relief to the authors as it strengthens their position is new modes of exploitation of their work come into existence.

Mode of assignment:

Section 19 of the Act clearly lays down the requirements to assign a copyright. They are as follows:

  1. Unless the assignment is in writing and is signed by the assignor, the agreement will not be valid;
  2. The rights assigned along with duration and territorial extent must be clearly established;
  3. The amount of royalty or any other consideration payable must be clearly specified;
  4. It is to be noted that if the assignee fails to exercise the rights assigned to him within one year of the date of assignment, then such assignment shall be deemed to have lapsed unless  there is some provision to the contrary in the agreement;
  5. If the period of assignment is not mentioned, then it shall be for 5 years;
  6. Similarly, if the territorial extent is not mentioned, it shall be presumed to extend within India;
Amendment of 2012 to Section 19:

Three clauses have been added with respect to assignment to Section 19 which basically says that royalty has to be paid to the authors whose work has been exploited in a cinematographic film other than by way of exhibition of the film in a cinema hall. This simply means that the authors are entitled to the subsequent royalties which may arise in the course of further exploitation of the film which includes their work. For example, they will also be entitled to royalty for satellite right, home video, internet right etc. This again strengthens the position of the authors of the work are the actual owners of anything apart from their work in the cinematographic film. The second clause that has been added is for sound recording and is the same as above.

What the authors can do is register their work with a copyright society and thereafter license it to whoever they like.

Moral rights

A creator of any work has the right to claim authorship of the work and claim damages in case of any distortion, mutilation or modification caused to his work and such an act should have been done before the expiration of the term of assignment is such an act will cause harm to his goodwill.

It is to be noted that moral rights are independent of the author’s copyright and moral rights remain with the author even if he has assigned his copyright.

So what should be learnt from the recent news on various copyright assignment issues is that while assigning your rights, it is rather important that you clearly lay down the specific right which you are assigning in order to eliminate the chances of confusion being caused. The amendment of 2012 has played a very important role in strengthening the earlier weak position of authors of works with respect to assignments. Because if someone wants to benefit from their own labour and skill, they should be able to do so without constantly fearing of getting crushed by the giants!

This article has been authored by Durga Bhatt, an IP Law practitioner.

Recommended Post: