Under the Copyright Act, registration of a book is the foremost prerequisite for acquiring the copyright protection over it. For the purpose of registration of copyright, it is necessary that the book is an original creation and duly comply with the provisions of the respective jurisdictions of copyright law. Although it’s not compulsory to register for copyright protection, it’s always recommended to register the copyright in order to avoid any copyright disputes. Once it is registered, the author or the original creator will have the authority and the property rights in the book.
Computer Program
A computer program may be termed as a set of instructions that can be presented in the form of codes which includes a medium that can read machines and capable of doing a specific task and achieving the targeted results.
This type of work may be registered for the purpose of copyright protection if it has covered the prerequisites of registration of copyright and the procedure to obtain copyright protection.
Computer databases
There is no specific mention of the term “tables” or “databases” but the computer databases are a part of copyright subject matter as according to the Indian copyright law and UK copyright law. However, the judiciary of Indian copyright law and UK copyright law has given a specific meaning to these terms and provided the required grounds upon which they can be provided with copyright protection such as the work must exhibit originality and creativity.
In case of copyright in databases, the criteria of originality and creativity is fulfilled when the author has expressed his creative ability with the help of an original method for selection or arrangement of the data, however, along with the originality there should be some free space for creativity as well.
The criteria of originality would not be satisfied when the author has set up the databases by considering some rules, technicality and has not put any creativity in it.