Most people filing for the first time worry about the application form. In our experience the form is the easy part. What separates an application that clears from one that sits is the paperwork behind it: whether everyone who contributed has signed something, and whether what they signed actually does the job.
The problem: a contributor you did not paper
Anyone whose contribution could found a claim needs to have assigned or waived it in your favour, in writing. For a composition that means every composer and every lyricist. For a recording it means the arranger and every singer, a performer holds rights under section 38A independently of the copyright in the recording, so “we paid them for the session” is not the same as having their consent on paper.
The singer is the one most often missed, and a query that asks for consents will usually list them explicitly.
The fix: list every human being who touched the work before you start, and get a document from each. Two rules keep the pile small without leaving gaps: a role shared by several people can go in one joint document they all sign, and one person holding several roles can be covered by one combined document that addresses each capacity in its own numbered clause.
The problem: a deed that looks complete and is not
This is the expensive one, because the document reads fine.
Section 19 of the Copyright Act sets out what an assignment must contain, and then supplies defaults when it does not:
- 19(2): an assignment shall specify the rights assigned and the duration and territorial extent. Not optional.
- 19(5): if the period is not stated, it is deemed to be five years.
- 19(6): if the territory is not specified, it is presumed to extend within India.
- 19(4): if the assignee does not exercise the rights within one year, the assignment is deemed to have lapsed, unless the deed says otherwise.
- 19(3): an assignment shall also specify the amount of royalty and any other consideration payable to the author or their heirs. This is the one almost every template ignores. A clause reciting that consideration has been received in full, without saying what it was, does not obviously satisfy a subsection that asks for an amount. We are flagging it rather than resolving it, because we have not seen it tested and we are not lawyers.
And section 39A applies section 19 to performers’ rights too, so a singer’s consent is caught by exactly the same defaults.
So a consent that is eloquent about permission and silent on duration and territory gives you five years, in India, whatever everyone in the room believed. And a recording you shelve for a year can lose its assignment while it sits.
The fix: every document states duration and territory on its face, and says the assignment survives non-exercise. Three lines that cost nothing at signing and are unfixable afterwards without going back to a person who may no longer be reachable.
The problem: trying to buy out the royalty right
A clause reading “full and final consideration, no further claims of any kind” looks strong and is, in part, simply void.
For a song that is not part of a film, the fourth proviso to section 18 says the author of the literary or musical work included in a sound recording shall not assign or waive the right to receive royalties shared on an equal basis with the assignee, except to their legal heirs or to a collecting society, and “any assignment to the contrary shall be void.” Section 19(10) says the same thing from the other direction.
Note equal basis. It is not a token right; it is half.
The fix: stop trying. Take the assignment of the economic rights, and route the author’s royalty share through a collecting society, which is exactly what the proviso contemplates. A clause that routes royalties properly is one nobody needs to litigate; a void clause is an invitation.
The problem: signatures that are easy to question
Send originals, signed in wet ink, notarised.
Notarisation here is simpler than people expect: a Notary Public’s seal and signature on the document itself. Both sides sign, the person giving the consent, and the company accepting it.
On stamp paper, we can only tell you what we have done. Our consents and assignments are plain notarised documents, not executed on stamp paper, and they have gone through. We have not found an official source stating that stamp paper is never required for these, and stamp duty is a state subject, so we are not going to tell you it is unnecessary everywhere. If the answer matters to your situation, check your own state’s position.
The fix: print, sign, notarise, scan for the upload, and post the originals. An electronic signature is a cheap thing for an examiner to stop on, and the cost of doing it properly is an afternoon.