Term of Copyright (Sections 22–29)

Sections 22 to 29 of the Copyright Act, 1957 answer one deceptively simple question — for how long does the author's monopoly run? The Act does not give a single answer. It gives a graded answer that turns on the kind of work, on whether the author is identifiable, on whether the work was published in the author's lifetime, and on whether the author is a natural person, the Government, a public undertaking, or an international organisation. Once the term expires, the work falls into the public domain and may be freely copied, performed, adapted, broadcast or commercially exploited by anyone.

The architecture is doctrinally important. Copyright is, in the traditional formulation, a balance between two competing public interests — rewarding the creator with a temporary monopoly and replenishing the public domain with works that future creators can build upon. Section 22 onwards is where that balance is struck in numbers. A judiciary aspirant must therefore not merely memorise “sixty years” — the question is sixty years from what, in respect of which work, and computed on what triggering event. The chapter sits doctrinally downstream of the statutory definitions in Section 2 and of the catalogue of protected works in Section 13, and upstream of the infringement provisions in Section 51, which only bite while the term is running.

Statutory anchor and scheme

The Copyright Act, 1957 places the duration provisions in Chapter V, captioned “Term of Copyright”. The chapter runs from Section 22 to Section 29 and is exhaustive — once a work falls outside its specific provision, copyright in that work is taken to have expired.

1. Section 22 — published literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works.
2. Section 23 — anonymous and pseudonymous works.
3. Section 24 — posthumous works.
4. Section 25 — photographs (now subsumed within “artistic work” under the 2012 Amendment, but the section retained for legacy works).
5. Section 26 — cinematograph films.
6. Section 27 — sound recordings.
7. Section 28 — Government works.
8. Section 28A — works of public undertakings.
9. Section 29 — works of international organisations.

One drafting feature unifies the chapter — every term is computed not from the date of the triggering event itself, but from the beginning of the calendar year next following that event. Section 22 makes this universal. The reason is purely administrative: it spares courts and registrars the messy task of computing day-by-day expiry across millions of works, and it ensures that the public-domain calendar is read in clean January-1st instalments.

Section 22 — the default rule for literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works

Section 22 is the centre of the chapter. It applies to a published literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work where the author is known and is a natural person. The term is the lifetime of the author plus sixty calendar years, computed from the beginning of the calendar year next following the year in which the author dies.

Three points are worth pinning down. First, the trigger is the author's death, not the date of publication — a book first published in 1950 by an author who lived until 1990 enjoys protection until 31 December 2050, not 31 December 2010. Second, the formula is “life plus sixty”, which is more generous than the Berne Convention minimum of “life plus fifty” under Article 7(1). India is therefore Berne-plus-ten on this point and TRIPS-compliant a fortiori. Third, the rule applies only when the work was published in the author's lifetime; if it was not, the special posthumous rule in Section 24 takes over.

Joint authorship

Where a work is one of joint authorship within the meaning of Section 2(z), the reference to “the author” in Section 22 must be read as a reference to the author who dies last. The protection therefore runs from the death of the longest-surviving joint author — a rule that gives the work a single, predictable expiry date and avoids the awkwardness of the work being half in copyright and half in the public domain.

Section 23 — anonymous and pseudonymous works

Section 23 deals with the situation where the author is not identifiable on the face of the work — either because no name appears (anonymous) or because a pen name is used and the real identity remains undisclosed (pseudonymous). The term in such cases is sixty years from the beginning of the calendar year next following the year in which the work is first published.

The shift in the triggering event from death to publication is not arbitrary. When the author is not identifiable, there is no death-date to anchor the computation; the only certainty is the date of first publication. The Act therefore substitutes one for the other.

The proviso to Section 23 contains a useful escape. If at any time before the expiry of the sixty-year term the identity of the author is disclosed — either by the author or, after death, by the legal representatives — the term reverts to the Section 22 formula and runs for sixty years from the death of the now-identified author. The disclosure must be authentic; a pseudonym pierced by literary detective-work alone, without consent of the author or the estate, does not trigger the proviso.

Section 24 — posthumous works

A posthumous work, in the language of Section 24, is a literary, dramatic or musical work, or an engraving, in which copyright subsists at the date of the death of the author but which (or any adaptation of which) has not been published before that date. For such a work the sixty-year clock begins from the beginning of the calendar year next following the year in which the work is first published.

The provision plays an important pedagogical role. It demonstrates that under Indian copyright law publication is not strictly a precondition for copyright to subsist — copyright comes into being on creation and fixation in some material form. What publication does is shift the computation rule. Without publication during life, Section 22 cannot apply because there is no “work published within the lifetime of the author”; Section 24 then takes over.

Where the work is a play that was performed but never reduced to print, or a song recorded for personal use but not commercially released, the question of whether the public-performance or limited-circulation amounts to “publication” for Section 24 purposes is fact-specific. Indian courts have generally adopted the orthodox position that performance simpliciter is not publication; only making copies available to the public in a manner that satisfies Section 3 of the Act will do.

Section 25 — photographs (and the 2012 reform)

Until the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012, a photograph was a separate species of work and Section 25 conferred a flat sixty-year term computed from the beginning of the calendar year next following the year of first publication. The 2012 amendment merged photographs into the broader category of “artistic work” under Section 2(c). For photographs taken after the amendment, the Section 22 “life plus sixty” rule now applies, treating the photographer as the author.

Section 25 is, however, not a dead letter — it continues to govern photographs whose copyright was already running on the date the amendment came into force, on the well-settled principle against retrospective shortening or extension of vested rights. A judicial-services question on this point will typically test the candidate's awareness of the transition rather than the present law.

Sections 26 and 27 — cinematograph films and sound recordings

For a cinematograph film and for a sound recording, copyright subsists for sixty years from the beginning of the calendar year next following the year in which the film or recording is published. There is no “life plus” formula for these works because their author, in the statutory definition, is the producer — typically a corporate body — and a corporate body has no biological lifespan to anchor the term.

The Indian position is doctrinally consistent with the subject-matter scheme of Section 13. Films and sound recordings are derivative works — they almost invariably embed underlying literary, musical or dramatic works whose own copyright runs on the Section 22 formula. The film's own sixty-year term is therefore an additional layer; expiry of the film's copyright does not automatically liberate the underlying script or song. The question of overlapping monopolies was at the heart of Indian Performing Right Society v. Eastern India Motion Pictures Association AIR 1977 SC 1443, where the Supreme Court held that the producer of a film acquires copyright in the film itself but the composer retains rights in the underlying musical work where the composer was not under a contract of service, subject of course to the contract of assignment. The downstream question of how royalties are then administered falls to be addressed by the collective-administration regime through copyright societies under Sections 33 to 36A.

Sections 28, 28A and 29 — Government, public undertakings and international organisations

Section 28 governs Government works — works whose first owner under Section 17(d) is the Government — and prescribes a flat sixty-year term from the beginning of the calendar year next following first publication. Section 28A applies the same rule to works of which a public undertaking is the first owner. Section 29 extends an identical sixty-year rule to works of certain international organisations notified under Section 41.

The unifying logic is straightforward: where the first owner is an institution rather than a natural person, there is no death-date and the only stable trigger is publication. The Act therefore treats Government works, public undertakings and international organisations on the same footing as cinematograph films and sound recordings — sixty years from publication, full stop.

Computation: the “next following calendar year” rule

A point that recurs across every section in the chapter and that is repeatedly tested in objective-format examinations: the term is never measured from the day of death or the day of publication. It is measured from the beginning of the calendar year next following that event. The author who dies on 5 March 2026 is, for term-computation purposes, treated as having died on 1 January 2027, and the sixty-year clock starts there. The work passes into the public domain on 1 January 2087.

This convention has two consequences worth noting. It always lengthens the protection by a fraction — a death-date in January gives an almost-full year of grace, whereas a death-date in December gives almost none. And it means that the public domain refreshes itself only once a year, on 1 January, which is observed informally as “Public Domain Day” in many jurisdictions.

The Berne and TRIPS overlay

India's term provisions are the implementation of two international commitments. Article 7(1) of the Berne Convention prescribes a minimum term of life plus fifty years for literary and artistic works; India's life-plus-sixty exceeds the floor and is therefore Berne-plus-ten. Article 7(2) and 7(3) deal with cinematographic and anonymous works respectively, and Article 7(4) gives Members discretion to grant a shorter term to photographs (the minimum being twenty-five years) — a discretion India elected not to exercise, instead conferring the full Section 22 term on photographs after the 2012 amendment.

The TRIPS Agreement, in Article 9.1, simply incorporates Berne Articles 1 to 21 (with the exception of Article 6bis on moral rights). Article 12 of TRIPS sets a minimum term of fifty years computed from the end of the calendar year of authorised publication for works other than photographs and works of applied art, where the term of protection is calculated on a basis other than the life of a natural person. India is again above the TRIPS floor on this point.

One implication for the candidate — a question that asks whether India's term complies with the international minimum is always answered in the affirmative. A question that asks whether the international minimum requires “life plus sixty” is incorrect; the international floor is fifty.

Term, public domain, and the originality threshold

Once the Section 22 to Section 29 clock runs out, the work falls into the public domain. But “public domain” is not a register — the work simply ceases to attract the bundle of exclusive rights conferred by Section 14. Anyone may copy, adapt, perform, communicate to the public, or commercially exploit the work without authorisation.

An important caveat: a derivative work made from a public-domain original may itself attract fresh copyright, but only to the extent that it satisfies the originality threshold articulated in Eastern Book Company v. D.B. Modak (2008) 1 SCC 212. The Supreme Court there rejected both the pure “sweat of the brow” standard and the high-watermark American “minimum-creativity” standard of Feist v. Rural Telephone, settling on a middle path — the work must reflect skill, judgment and a minimum degree of creative input. A mere chronological compilation of public-domain texts is not protected; an annotated, head-noted edition that displays editorial judgment may be.

Term and the bundle of related-but-distinct rights

Term provisions interact with three other parts of the Act in ways the candidate must keep distinct. First, performers' rights under Section 38 have a term of fifty years from the beginning of the calendar year next following the year of performance — ten years shorter than the copyright term and computed on a different trigger. Second, broadcast reproduction rights under Section 37 have a term of twenty-five years on the same calendar-year basis. Third, moral rights under Section 57 — the right of attribution and the right to integrity — are perpetual in respect of the right of attribution after the 2012 amendment, although the right to integrity ends with the term of copyright. The candidate should also keep in view the parallel timeline of civil remedies under Sections 55 to 62, which are available only while copyright subsists.

This multi-tier structure can be summarised in a table that examiners frequently draw on for distinguish-and-compare style questions:

Leading authorities

The case law on term per se is sparse — the rules are arithmetical and rarely litigated in isolation — but several decisions cast light on the interaction between term and the rest of the copyright scheme.

Indian Performing Right Society v. Eastern India Motion Pictures Association AIR 1977 SC 1443 remains the foundational authority on the autonomy of the underlying musical work vis-à-vis the cinematograph film. Where a song composer is engaged under a contract of service for the making of a film, the producer becomes the first owner of copyright in the film. The composer's interest in the underlying work survives only to the extent that the contract preserves it. The decision is the doctrinal anchor for the modern lyricist-and-composer revisions made by the 2012 amendment, which rewrote Sections 17, 18 and 19 to restore certain rights to the underlying authors.

Eastern Book Company v. D.B. Modak (2008) 1 SCC 212 is the originality case but its term-implications are non-trivial. By holding that head-notes and editorial copy-edits attract a fresh copyright, the Court effectively created a new term running from the date of the editorial work — not from the date of the original judgment, which is a Government work governed by Section 28 with its own sixty-year clock from publication.

R.G. Anand v. Delux Films AIR 1978 SC 1613 — better known for laying down the substantial similarity test — also serves as a reminder that infringement actions presuppose a subsisting copyright. A defendant who can show that the plaintiff's work is out of term has an absolute defence, and the term-computation provisions are therefore the first stop in any infringement matter — earlier even than the catalogue of fair-dealing exceptions in Section 52, which presuppose a subsisting right.

Distinguish from cognate provisions

Examination questions frequently set the term provisions against three cognate doctrines that govern the lifecycle of the work in different ways. The first is assignment under Section 18, which transfers ownership but does not extend term — an assignee takes the unexpired residue of whatever term remained with the assignor. The second is the registration regime in Sections 44 to 50A, which is permissive, not constitutive: registration neither creates the copyright nor extends its term, it merely furnishes prima facie evidence under Section 48. The third is the licensing regime, including the compulsory-licence provisions of Sections 31 and 31A; a licence operates only during the subsistence of copyright and dies with it.

A second comparison worth holding in mind is between term and the doctrine of exhaustion of rights. Once a copy of the work has been put on the market by the right-holder or with consent, the right-holder's distribution right in that particular copy is generally said to be exhausted; but this exhaustion does not affect the underlying copyright term. The work remains in copyright for its full statutory duration; only the right-holder's downstream control over the specific copy is curtailed. This distinction is doctrinally important and is occasionally tested.

MCQ angle and exam pitfalls

Three pitfalls recur in objective questions on the term chapter. The first is forgetting the “next following calendar year” trigger and computing the term from the date of death or publication itself; the question is designed precisely to exploit this slip, and the correct answer is always the next-following-year date. The second is conflating the term of copyright with the term of performers' rights or broadcast reproduction rights — the candidate must keep sixty, fifty and twenty-five years separated by section number. The third is treating moral rights as time-barred along with copyright; after the 2012 amendment the right of attribution is perpetual, although the right to integrity is co-terminus with the copyright term.

A higher-difficulty question may turn on the joint-authorship rule, asking the candidate to identify the relevant date when one of two co-authors dies in 2010 and the other in 2025. The answer is sixty years from 1 January 2026 — that is, expiry on 31 December 2085 — because the Section 22 trigger is the death of the longest-surviving joint author. Another higher-difficulty pattern asks about a posthumous work first published thirty years after the author's death; here Section 24 controls and the term runs for sixty years from the year following first publication, not from the year following the author's death.

The chapter is short on case law and dense on arithmetic. Mastery comes from drilling the section-to-trigger mapping until the next-following-calendar-year computation is automatic, and from holding the four cognate doctrines — assignment, registration, licensing, exhaustion — separate from the running of term itself.