Copyright Licence in India

The owner of a copyright may grant any interest in the right by license to a third-party. Legally speaking, the owner has the right to grant an interest in any right in the copyright by license to another party. Such grant of right in the interest is generally subject to certain terms and conditions. Unlike an assignment, there is no transfer of ownership in case of a license.

Some aspects that ought to be covered in the licensing agreement include the following but not limited to:

1. Type and scope of license granted
2. Term and Territorial extent of the license
3. Consideration (in this case, royalty) which could be a lump sum made in advance or a running payment.
4. Terms regarding revision if any
5. The extension (if any) and termination

 Types of Copyright License in India

There are different types of licenses, details of which are given below.

An Exclusive license is one which is granted exclusively to the licensee to the exclusion of everyone including the licensor to exploit the copyrighted work.

A Non-exclusive license permits the licensor to grant a license to any number of parties without exclusivity to anyone.

A Sole license is where the license is granted only to one party to the exclusion of all others save the licensor, implying the licensor still retains and has the right to exercise his right.

A compulsory license is where a license is sought for a work that is unavailable to the public. Generally, in such cases, the owner deliberately withholds the work from the public or the owner of the work is dead or not found or cannot be traced. In short, the work is unavailable to the public and a third party applies to the Appellate Board to obtain a license to make the work available to the public.

Where the work is withheld from the public deliberately by the owner, a complaint is made to the Appellate board that specific work is not being made available to the public or republished (in case of published work) by the owner. In such a case, the Appellate Board after giving the owner an opportunity to be heard, is satisfied that it is so, shall direct the Copyright Office to grant a license to the complainant for the said work, provided the owner is compensated and such other terms and conditions that it may lay down are followed.