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Writer's pictureBIAT Legal Advocates And Legal Advisors

How To Copyright a Movie or a Short Film?


The owner or a short film is created, you hold a right for its Copyright, but copyright registration is a vital part as it will protect the owners from any kind of infringement. Copyright registration provides additional protection to the owners of the copyright to take legal action against those infringers.


Advantages of Copyright Registration


Copyright registration gives an exclusive right to the owners over your work, including the right to reproduce and distribute it to the public and to perform the work publicly. But in order to enforce these exclusive rights you need to register your work. Below are the advantages of Copyright registration and they are as follows-


  • Through Copyright registration, if someone is copying your work without your permission then you have an exclusive right to bring a legal suit against that infriger in the court.

  • By registering your Copyright you have established a valid proof of evidence of copyright.

  • Once your copyright has been infringed by some other person and you are commercially being exploited by that infringer, then you can claim damages from the infringer in a court of law.

  • Registered copyright gives you the protection from importation of infringing copies of your work.


How To Copyright a Short Film or a Movie?


Copyright registration for a film or a short movie can be done in two ways-


Online Registration- Once the creator of the work has created something and wants to get its protection through copyright protection, then he can apply for Copyright registration online. Online copyright registration process is quite easy and it saves your cost and time as well. Online copyright registration has following advantages-


  • lower fees

  • faster application processing time

  • ability to track the status of your application online

  • secure online payment

You can register your work online through https://copyright.gov.in/ portal. Once you have filed your copyright application you need to submit the hardcopy of documents along with two copies of work and form and acknowledgement letter to the copyright office.You can also hire a Copyright attorney or IPR attorney for better assistance.


Copyright registration process


Firstly Application for Copyright Registration is to be filed by an Applicant, and there should be a separate application for each registration if there are more than one application and each application should be accompanied with the prescribed fees which is given or provided by the Registry. And that Application should be firstly signed by an applicant itself and by the Advocate whose Vakalatnama and Power of attorney is attached or has been executed. And that Vakalatnama shall be signed by the party and accepted by the Advocate, and that acceptance should be enclosed.


Then the Diary Number is allotted by the Registry to the Applicant, and after getting your Diary Number you have to wait for the mandatory period of days so that no objection is raised in the copyright office against your claim that particular work is not created by you.


Then if there will be no Objection then there will be scrutinization by the examiner, then after scrutinization they will search for Discrepancies, if no discrepancy found then copyright registration will be approved by the Registry, but there is any discrepancy found then discrepancy letter will be issued to the Applicant, and reply to that letter will be prepared by the Applicant, and then hearing by the registrar will be conducted then either approval or rejection for registration will be done.


And if there is an objection raised in the Copyright office hen letter for objection will be served to both the parties, and then reply has to be filed by both the parties, then hearing will be conducted by the Registrar and then application will either be Accepted or rejected , if Application is accepted then check for discrepancy will be conducted and discrepancy is found then letter will be issued to the Applicant and then Applicant will prepare the reply, and then mater will be gone for hearing and then registrar will either accept the application or will reject it. And finally if the application is approved then Application for copyright will be registered and if rejected then application will be rejected.



Deposit Requirements for Registration


Your application is not complete unless you meet the mandatory depository requirements. For a movie or a short film, you will need to send the separate description of your work that outlines its nature, general content, as well as the complete copy of the work.


If your short film or a movie is not published then you just need to send all the audios and videos to the copyright office that will be covered by copyright registration.


Effective date of Copyright Registration


The effective date of your brand enrollment isn't the date on which your operation is reused and your enrollment instrument issued. rather, the effective date of your enrollment is the date on which the Copyright Office receives all of the following corridor of your operation


  • your completed operation form

  • applicable form figure

  • a deposit in respectable form


Contact us at BIAT Legal for your Copyright registration needs. We will make sure that your work is protected throughout the process.


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