Is Copyright Registration Mandatory in India? What Registration Does, and Doesn't, Do for You

Arjun produces background music in Indore and licenses tracks to YouTubers. In July he heard one of his tracks under a regional TV advertisement for a cement brand. His lawyer sent a notice. The agency's reply was one line: "Your track is not registered with the Copyright Office, so you have no case."

Is copyright registration mandatory in India? No, and the agency is wrong on the law. But its reply says something true about how these disputes go: the side with cleaner paperwork gets believed sooner. This guide covers where copyright comes from, what the courts say about suing without a certificate, what registration adds, and the two places, logos and manufactured products, where the rules work differently.

Quick answer

No, copyright registration is not mandatory in India. Copyright arises automatically when an original work is created, and section 45 of the Copyright Act, 1957 says an owner "may" apply to register, in line with the Berne Convention's no-formalities rule. The Bombay High Court held in Sanjay Soya v Narayani Trading (2021) that registration is not needed to sue, rejecting the contrary 2012 Dhiraj Dewani decision, and applied the same reasoning to criminal prosecution in 2024. Registration gives you prima facie evidence under section 48. Two exceptions need attention: logos used on goods or services need a Trade Marks Registry search certificate before copyright registration, and copyright in an unregistered industrial design ends after more than 50 industrial reproductions.

Copyright starts when you create, not when you file

Section 13 of the Copyright Act, 1957 says copyright subsists in original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works, cinematograph films and sound recordings. Computer programmes count as literary works. Nothing in section 13 mentions registration.

Registration sits in a separate chapter (sections 44 to 50A), where section 45 says an owner "may" apply. The Bombay High Court put it plainly in Asian Paints (I) Ltd v Jaikishan Paints & Allied Products (2002): copyright subsists as soon as the work is created and given a material form, even if unregistered.

So the track has to exist as a file and the logo as a drawing. Copyright never protects the idea itself, only its expression.

It is also a treaty obligation. India has been part of the Berne Convention since 1928, and Article 5(2) says the enjoyment and exercise of copyright shall not be subject to any formality.

Parliament considered the opposite and rejected it. Clause 65(2) of the Copyright Bill, 1955, which would have barred suits on unregistered works, was dropped by the Joint Committee as an undue restriction on owners. Trademarks differ: section 27 of the Trade Marks Act, 1999 bars infringement actions on unregistered marks, and the Copyright Act has no equivalent.

Can you sue without registration? What the courts say

The confusion has one main source. In Dhiraj Dharamdas Dewani v Sonal Info Systems Pvt Ltd (Bombay High Court, 2012), a single judge hearing a dispute over taxation software held registration mandatory for any civil or criminal remedy. His reasoning: an infringer cannot be expected to know who owns an unregistered work, so the "may" in section 45 had to be read as "shall".

Defendants relied on Dewani for nine years. Then, on 9 March 2021, Justice G.S. Patel decided Sanjay Soya Pvt Ltd v Narayani Trading Co, a dispute over soyabean oil labels, and held Dewani per incuriam, that is, decided in ignorance of binding law. Four earlier Bombay High Court decisions had held registration optional (Burroughs Wellcome, 1997; Asian Paints, 2002; International Association of Lions Club, 2006; Anand Patwardhan, 2009), and Dewani had not dealt with them. An earlier criminal-side ruling, Gulfam Exporters, met the same fate on this point.

The criminal side followed. In Dattatray Bapu Dighe v State of Maharashtra (Bombay High Court, October 2024), a man accused of duplicating books argued that they were not registered. Justice S.M. Modak rejected the argument, relying on Sanjay Soya, and dismissed his challenge.

Other High Courts have long agreed, including Calcutta in Satsang v Kiron Chandra Mukhopadhyay (AIR 1972 Cal 533) and Delhi in Rajesh Masrani v Tahiliani Design Pvt Ltd (AIR 2009 Del 44). A few older Orissa and Madhya Pradesh decisions went the other way, and the Madhya Pradesh view was later held not good law by a Full Bench of that court.

Our view: if a reply to your notice leans on Dewani, it relies on a decision its own High Court has declared per incuriam. Say so, and move the argument to the evidence.

What section 48 gives you, and where it stops

Section 48 makes the Register of Copyrights prima facie evidence of the particulars entered in it, and certified extracts are admissible in every court without further proof or production of the original.

In practice that changes the first hearing. At the interim stage a judge decides on papers, and an extract naming author, owner and date takes "who owns this?" off the table unless the other side brings real evidence. Without one, you spend that hearing proving authorship from old files.

Know the limits:

• It is rebuttable. Asian Paints said the presumption is not conclusive, and a defendant's registration cannot by itself defeat a plaintiff who proves earlier creation.
• It is not an originality ruling. The Copyright Office enters particulars after a 30-day objection window and its own scrutiny. That is not the examination a patent goes through.
• It does not fix ownership. If a freelancer made the work and nobody signed a written assignment (section 19 requires one), a certificate in your company's name records a claim, not a title.
• It can be challenged. The Registrar or any person aggrieved can seek rectification under section 50.

One more lesson from Sanjay Soya: the defendant had applied to register its own look-alike label, and the court treated that as an implicit admission that the plaintiff's earlier label was original. Registering a copy can backfire.

Logos and labels: the Trade Marks Registry step

Here registration comes with a condition. Under the proviso to section 45(1), if an artistic work is used, or capable of being used, in relation to any goods or services, the application must say so and carry a certificate from the Registrar of Trade Marks that no identical or deceptively similar trademark has been registered or applied for by anyone else. Rule 70(6) of the Copyright Rules, 2013 repeats this.

The request is made on Form TM-C under rule 22 of the Trade Marks Rules, 2017, which says the certificate should ordinarily issue within thirty working days.

What it means for you:

• It catches logos, labels, packaging artwork and mascots, and any artwork that works as a brand. The label on your pickle jar is squarely in.
• Your own trademark application does not block you. Someone else's similar mark does, and the search often surfaces a conflict you would rather find before launch.
• Copyright in a logo protects the artwork, not the brand. It stops copying of the drawing, not a competitor trading under a confusingly similar name. That is trademark territory.

For a logo, we file the trademark first or alongside, then the copyright. Our guide to what each IP right protects explains the fit.

Section 15: the trap for anyone who manufactures

Section 15(1) says copyright does not subsist in a design registered under the Designs Act, 2000. Section 15(2) goes further: copyright in a design that could have been registered but wasn't ends once any article bearing it has been reproduced more than fifty times by an industrial process, by the owner or a licensee. Rule 70(7) therefore asks anyone registering a design-capable artistic work for an affidavit that it is not a registered design and has not crossed that line.

In Microfibres Inc v Girdhar & Co (2009), a Division Bench of the Delhi High Court held that the original artwork keeps its full copyright, while the design derived from it loses copyright past the threshold. In Cryogas Equipment Pvt Ltd v Inox India Ltd (15 April 2025), the Supreme Court set a two-pronged test: first, whether the work is purely an artistic work or a design derived from one and applied industrially; second, if copyright does not apply, whether a functional utility test of its dominant purpose shows it qualifies as a design.

Here is how it catches people. A Rajkot kitchenware startup sketches a decorative pattern for a steel tiffin, makes 2,000 units and starts selling. A competitor copies it. The founders assume copyright covers them, but for the pattern as applied to the tiffins, copyright probably ended at unit fifty-one. A design registration would have helped, except that a design must be new to be registered, and they have been selling it in public.

If you make physical products, file the design before launch and keep the original drawings. Our design registration guide walks through the process.

Where registration earns its keep

Police complaints

The Supreme Court held in Knit Pro International v State of NCT of Delhi (2022) that infringement under section 63 is cognizable and non-bailable, so police can register an FIR directly. Section 64 lets an officer of sub-inspector rank or above seize infringing copies without a warrant, if satisfied that such an offence has been, is being or is likely to be committed. In our experience, a certified extract is what makes an officer comfortable acting; without one, the station is being asked to decide ownership from a bundle of files.

Customs

Section 53 lets an owner ask Customs to treat infringing imports as prohibited goods for up to a year, with proof of ownership. Under the Intellectual Property Rights (Imported Goods) Enforcement Rules, 2007, the right holder files a notice at the port (rule 3), and the Commissioner decides within 30 working days whether to register it (rule 4). Copyright registration is not a condition, but the notice needs proof that the right exists and is yours, and an extract is the simplest proof.

Platform takedowns

Under rule 75 of the Copyright Rules, 2013, an owner's complaint must include evidence of ownership and an undertaking to sue within 21 days; a platform satisfied that the copy infringes must block access within 36 hours, for 21 days or until a court order. YouTube's removal form does not ask for a registration number. Registration earns its place in disputed cases: counter-notices, repeat infringers, sellers who claim the artwork is theirs.

Licensing, funding and assignments

Anyone paying for your IP will ask what you own and how you can show it. A schedule of works registered in the company's name answers both in due diligence. Assignments must be in writing under section 19, and can then be recorded in the Register on Form XV.

Timing

Under rule 70(10), the Registrar waits thirty days for objections, and even then enters particulars only if satisfied they are correct. Registration is not automatic. For the full process, see our guide to copyright registration in India.

Situation by situation: do you need it?

What to register first, and what to keep if you don't

Each application covers one work only (rule 70(2)), so you will be choosing. Our usual order:

1. Core software. The codebase you would show an investor. The application must include source and object code (rule 70(5)), so plan what goes in, and file again when a major rewrite leaves the registered version far behind.
2. Logos and packaging artwork. Trademark first or together, then copyright with the TM-C certificate.
3. The content that earns. The flagship course, signature tracks, the book that sells, the illustrations you license repeatedly. Databases and compilations register as literary works.
4. Anything a freelancer or agency made. Get the written assignment signed, then register in your name.

For everything else, keep an evidence trail. A checklist:

• Working files with history: layered PSD or AI files, RAW photos, DAW projects and stems, dated manuscript drafts.
• Source repositories: Git history with authors and timestamps, pushed to a hosted remote so the record is not on one laptop.
• Emails and messages sending drafts to clients, collaborators or yourself.
• First publication proof: upload dates, original post URLs, archived copies.
• Contracts: employment terms, freelancer assignments, licences, invoices.
• A one-page register: each work, who made it, when, where the files live and who owns it on paper.

Take a 12-person design agency in Ahmedabad. It registers its logo, after the TM-C step, and the six illustrations it licenses most, once the two freelancers who worked on them have signed assignments. Everything else sits in a shared drive with dated files and a monthly register. A handful of filings and one habit.

How MYCrave can help

MYCrave Consultancy & Services handles copyright alongside the rights next to it:

• Copyright registration for software, artwork, music, books and content, with the ownership chain checked before filing;
• Trademark filing for logos and labels, coordinated with the TM-C certificate;
• Design registration for products, filed before launch while the design is still new;
• An IP exposure review of what your business has created, who owns it on paper and what to register first.

Register what you would hate to have to prove

Copyright in India doesn't wait for paperwork, and a missing certificate is no bar to suing. What registration changes is how quickly you are believed: by a judge at the first hearing, an officer at the station or the port, an investor across the table.

So pick the few works you would least like to prove from scratch, register those, get the assignments signed, and keep dated files for the rest. Arjun's track was his the day he exported it. A certificate would have let the first conversation be about the copying, not about whether the track was his.

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