Software copyright is used by proprietary software companies

Software copyright is used by proprietary software companies to prevent the unauthorized copying of their software. Free and open source licenses also rely on copyright law to enforce their terms. For instance, copyleft licenses impose a duty on licensees to share their modifications to the copylefted work with the user or copy owner under some circumstances. No such duty would apply had the software in question been in the public domain.

India • Software is copyrightable in India. [11] Recently, Copyright Office, New Delhi has copyrighted the Hindi to Punjabi Machine Translation Software developed by Dr. Vishal Goyal and Dr. G. S. Lehal, Punjabi University Patiala. [12] Copyright in software, in the absence of any agreement to the contrary, vests in the author of the software, even for commissioned works. Copyright can be assigned or licensed through a written document, but under the Indian Copyright Act, in case the period of assignment is not specified, the period is deemed to be 5 years from the date of assignment ( section 1995) of the Copyright Act). In a recent judgement in the case of Pine Labs Private Limited vs Gemalto Terminals India Private Limited [13] the Delhi High Court has laid down that the copyright belongs to the author( in this case, pine Labs) and as the period of assignment was not specified in the document of assignment ( the Master Service