Sustainable design Copyright is a bundle of rights given by the law to the original creators of literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works and the producers of cinematograph films and sound recordings. The rights provided under Copyright law include the rights of reproduction of the work, communication of the work to the public, adaptation of the work and translation of the work. The term literary work also include computer programs, tables and compilations including computer databases which may be expressed in words, codes, schemes or in any other form, including a machine readable medium. In India the Copyright is governed by Indian Copyright Act, 1957. India is a member of Bern Convention, Universal Copyright Convention and Rome Convention.

The term of protection under the copyright law depends on the nature of work. For literary, musical or artistic work (excluding photographs) the term of protection is equal to life time of the creator and the 60 years from the death of the creator. However for unpublished works the term of protection remains up to 60 years from the end of the year in which the work was done. For cinematographs, photographs and computer programs the protection is available for 60 years from the end of the year in which the work was made available to the public.