Copyright Infringement: Stopping Copies of Your Software, Content, Designs and Media

What copyright covers, and when it's yours

Section 13 of the Copyright Act, 1957 protects original expression. That means literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works, plus films and sound recordings. Software counts as a literary work under Section 2(o), and so do tables and compilations, databases included. So your website text, product manuals, course material, photographs, a logo your designer drew, architectural drawings and your source code are all in.

You don't apply for copyright. It's yours the day the work is made, and registration with the Copyright Office is optional. We'd still register the works that matter. Under Section 48, the entry in the Register is prima facie evidence of the particulars recorded in it, and that helps a great deal when you're in front of a judge asking for urgent relief. For most works, copyright lasts for the author's lifetime plus sixty years (Section 22). Films, sound recordings and certain other categories generally run sixty years from publication instead. Check which rule fits your work.

One thing trips people up. Copyright protects the expression, not the idea. Anyone can build a food delivery app, a billing tool or a cookery channel. What they can't do is copy your code, your screens, your text, your photos or your videos. A lot of cases die because the owner's real grievance is that someone started a similar business. Copyright law won't stop that.

Who owns it? The question that sinks a lot of cases

Section 17 makes the author the first owner. The big exception is an employee who creates the work in the course of employment under a contract of service. There, the employer owns it unless they agreed otherwise. Outside agencies and freelancers are a different story. They own what they make unless you hold a written assignment.

And Section 19 is strict about assignments. They must be in writing and signed. If yours doesn't say for how long, the law reads it as five years. If it doesn't say where, it's India only. Think of a startup that paid an outside firm to build its app and has nothing on file except an invoice and a WhatsApp chat. It may own a lot less than it thinks.

When a software business asks Advocate B.K. Singh to file a copyright suit, his first request is the chain of title. That means employment letters with IP clauses for in-house developers, signed assignment deeds from vendors and freelancers, and proof of when each version of the code was written. The defendant will go after any gap in that chain first. It's far easier to plug with a confirmatory assignment before the fight starts than after.

What counts as copying in law

• Straight copying. Reproducing the work, or a substantial part of it, in any form and without a licence. That's infringement under Section 51. Changing the names, the colours or the variable names doesn't save the copier if the substance is yours.
• Software copying. Someone lifts your source or object code. Or they clone the structure of your programme in a way that copies protected expression. Or a client puts your licensed software on more machines than the licence allows.
• Online copying. Your website content gets scraped, your film, series, music or paid course gets uploaded somewhere, or copied e-books and PDFs get sold for a few rupees.
• Selling or importing copies. Selling, hiring out, distributing or importing infringing copies for trade is infringement too, even when the seller didn't make them.
• Letting a place be used. Allowing premises to be used for profit for infringing performances also counts. The exception is a person who didn't know and had no reason to believe it was infringing.
• Adaptations and translations. Dubbing your film, turning your book into a course, or making any derivative version without your permission.

What isn't infringement

Section 52 lists acts that don't infringe. In business disputes a few come up again and again: fair dealing for private use, research, criticism, review or reporting current events; a lawful possessor making backup copies of a computer programme; and certain acts needed to make one programme work with others. Fair dealing turns on the facts. How much was taken, and why? Does it compete with the original?

Independent creation is a complete defence. If two developers write similar code for the same function and neither copies the other, there's no infringement. That's why proof of access matters so much. Did the defendant actually have your code, through an ex-employee, a pilot project or a shared repository? Without that, similarity alone is a hard sell.

Designs are a trap. Under Section 15, copyright in a design that could have been registered under the Designs Act, 2000 ends once the design has been applied to more than fifty articles by an industrial process, unless it was registered as a design. So a textile print, a lamp shape or packaging artwork might need design registration, not copyright, to stop mass-produced copies. That route is on our page about patent and design infringement suits.

The sections you'll hear in court

Which court: value and place

In Delhi, a copyright suit valued above Rs 2 crore goes to the Commercial Division of the Delhi High Court, where IP matters are heard by the Intellectual Property Division under the Delhi High Court IP Division Rules, 2022. Below that, you file before the District Judge (Commercial Court) in the right district, which might be Saket, Tis Hazari, Rohini or another complex depending on the facts. A proposal to raise the district court limit has been under consideration since late 2025. Check the current figure. Our page on the Delhi High Court Commercial Division covers the High Court side.

Valuation isn't a formality. Section 12(1) of the Commercial Courts Act says that where the relief concerns intangible rights, the specified value is the market value of those rights as the plaintiff estimates it. The estimate has to be honest. You pay court fee on it. Push it up to get into the High Court and you'll pay more court fee and probably face an objection. Pitch it too low and you've capped the damages you can recover unless you amend.

In UP and Haryana, copyright suits go to the court designated as the district's Commercial Court, in Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddh Nagar, Gurugram, Faridabad and so on. Because of Section 62(2), a Noida software company can usually sue in Gautam Buddh Nagar even if the copier is sitting in Bengaluru. Online copying opens more doors, since the content is accessed and sold all over. Courts still want a real link to the forum. A website that happens to open in Delhi isn't enough.

Section 12A mediation, and when you can skip it

Most copyright suits come with an application for urgent interim relief, so they're usually exempt from pre-institution mediation under Section 12A. The exemption isn't automatic, though. In Yamini Manohar v. T.K.D. Keerthi (2023), a trade mark case, the Supreme Court said the court will look at the plaint and documents to see if the urgency is genuine. Adding a prayer for an injunction doesn't get you out of mediation by itself.

Urgency is easy to show when the copying is happening right now and the harm is the kind money can't repair. A pirated film streaming in its release week. A rival selling your software to your own customers. It's hard to show when you've known for a year and done nothing. If your urgency is thin, apply for mediation first. Time spent there doesn't count against limitation. Our page on mandatory mediation before a commercial suit explains how it works.

How a copyright suit runs, stage by stage

1. Save the evidence quietly

   Take screenshots with URLs and dates, download the pages, and make test purchases with proper invoices. Keep copies of the infringing software or files. Do it in a way that lets you give a certificate under Section 63 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023, because that's how electronic records get proved. And do it before the other side knows you're looking.

2. Pull together proof that it's yours

   Gather the original files with their dates, the version control history, the registration certificate if you have one, employment contracts and assignment deeds. Then build a side-by-side comparison showing exactly what was copied. Judges like seeing it on one page.

3. Choose between a notice and surprise

   A cease and desist notice works well with honest copiers and big platforms. Against a pirate, or an ex-employee holding your code, it just tells them to hide things. In those cases we file the suit first and ask for a local commissioner.

4. File the suit and ask for an injunction

   The plaint, verified by a statement of truth and filed with all your documents, asks for a permanent injunction, damages or accounts of profits, delivery up of infringing copies, and costs. With it goes an application under Order XXXIX Rules 1 and 2 for an interim injunction. In strong cases courts give an ex parte ad interim injunction on day one. More on our page about urgent injunctions to stop harm to your business.

5. Local commissioner, then service

   Under Order XXVI Rule 9 the court can appoint a local commissioner to visit the premises, list what's there, and seize or seal infringing goods or devices. The defendant is served only after the visit. Nothing gets moved.

6. Defence, disclosure and summary judgment

   The defendant gets up to 120 days to file its written statement. Both sides must disclose documents under Order XI. If the defence is weak, you can apply for summary judgment under Order XIIIA, which IP suits use a lot. See summary judgment without a full trial.

7. Trial, damages and costs

   If it goes to trial, evidence is mostly on affidavit, with cross-examination. The court fixes damages or orders accounts of profits. Under Section 35 of the Code of Civil Procedure, as amended for commercial suits, the losing side generally pays the costs.

How long it takes, and what it costs

Copying online: platforms, rogue sites and takedowns

If your content has been copied onto a marketplace, social media or an app store, start with the platform's own reporting tool and a formal notice. Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 protects intermediaries only if they act on proper notice, so most big platforms do respond. The weak spot is Rule 75 of the Copyright Rules. The takedown lasts 21 days unless you produce a court order. And repeat uploaders come straight back.

Rogue sites are another matter. For sites that exist to stream pirated films and sport, the Delhi High Court has granted injunctions against unknown defendants, along with orders telling internet service providers and government agencies to block them. It has also passed "dynamic" orders that reach mirror sites carrying the same content, so the owner doesn't need a fresh suit every time the domain changes. Media houses ask for these often, usually just before a release or a big event.

Then there's the everyday case, where a competitor has lifted your website text or product photos. What you can realistically get is an undertaking to take it down and stop, plus costs. A big damages award is unlikely. Courts do award damages, but proof of actual loss from copied text tends to be thin.

Software cases need someone to translate

The judge isn't a programmer. In a software case you have to show what was copied in a way a non-technical person can follow. That usually means an independent technical comparison of the two codebases, pointing out identical comments, identical bugs, matching file structures and unique functions that turn up in both. Shared mistakes are often the clearest proof of all. Two people rarely make the same error by chance.

Software disputes often sit half in copyright and half in contract. A client overusing a licence, a reseller selling outside its territory, a vendor refusing to hand over source code: these may be better pleaded as contract claims, with copyright as a second ground. Our page on IT, software and service contract disputes covers the contract side. When an ex-employee walks out with the repository and the client data, the claim usually joins copyright with confidential information. See when an ex-employee or partner takes your data or clients.

During the suit, the defendant may be made to produce its own source code. Courts can put confidentiality arrangements in place so that only the lawyers and named technical reviewers see it. Our page on document disclosure and inspection explains how Order XI is used to force that.

Damages, profits and costs

You can ask for damages for what you lost, or for an account of the infringer's profits. Generally not both for the same infringement. Damages are proved through lost sales, lost licence fees, or the fee the infringer would have paid had it taken a licence. An account of profits needs the defendant's books, and you get those through disclosure.

In some IP cases the Delhi High Court has awarded damages beyond provable loss, where the defendant ignored court orders or simply stayed away. Don't build your plan around that. It depends on the facts and the judge. Costs are easier to predict. Commercial courts are directed to award costs that follow the result and reflect how the parties behaved, and in IP suits these can be substantial.

The limitation period is three years from the date of infringement, under Article 88 of the Limitation Act, 1963. If the copying carries on, each new act can give a fresh cause of action. But delay still hurts. A judge asked for an urgent injunction will want to know why you waited.

The papers you'll need

Mistakes that hurt copyright cases

• Firing off a notice too soon. A pirate or an ex-employee reads it as a signal to wipe the laptops and move the servers.
• No written assignment from your vendors. Then the freelancer or agency still owns the work, and the defendant will say you can't even sue.
• Sitting on it. Months of delay after you found out weakens your case for urgent relief, and for skipping mediation.
• Suing over an idea. If there's no copied text, code or image, only a similar concept or business model, the suit rarely gets anywhere.
• Screenshots with no certificate. Without a Section 63 certificate, expect an objection at the worst possible moment.
• Picking a value without thinking. That one number decides the court, the court fee and how much you can recover.

Creators, startups and big companies have different problems

Individual creators and freelancers (photographers, writers, illustrators, people who make online courses) usually face lots of small copiers. A firm notice and platform takedowns deal with most of them. A suit makes sense when one copier is making real money or just won't stop. If you're a freelancer who sells to businesses, look at Section 19 from the other side. Unless you signed an assignment, you may still own what you delivered. That puts you in a much stronger spot when the client hasn't paid.

Software firms and SaaS startups should sort out their title papers early, and certainly before fund-raising. Why? The investors' lawyers will ask for the same chain of title a court would, and they read it just as closely. MSMEs in printing, textiles, packaging and furniture should check whether a design registration protects them better. Media companies and large businesses mostly need speed and scale, which means pre-release injunctions, dynamic blocking orders and action across several platforms at once. Most of that happens in the Delhi High Court.

If you're the one accused of copying

Don't ignore the notice or the suit. And don't delete anything. Destroying evidence after notice can be used against you and may lead to contempt or adverse inferences. The usual defences are that the claimant doesn't own the work, that you created yours independently, that what was taken is an unprotected idea or a standard element, that it was fair dealing under Section 52, or that you hold a licence.

A quick, practical response often limits the damage. Take the disputed material down without admitting liability, and offer a settlement or a licence. In the defence files that reach Advocate B.K. Singh, the weak point is usually the business's own records. Developers can't show when they wrote the code in question. Content teams can't say where the images came from. If you've already been sued, watch the 120-day deadline for your written statement. Our page on defending a commercial suit sets out the timeline.

What to do this week

Save the evidence before anyone knows you've seen it. Gather your ownership papers and look honestly for gaps, especially in work done by outsiders. Then decide whether a quiet takedown will do, or whether this needs a firm notice or even a suit with surprise relief. If the copying has grown into a fake brand as well, the route on our page about trademark infringement and passing off may run alongside.

Courts move fast on clear copyright cases with clean papers. Everything else is slow. If you'd like your ownership documents and evidence of copying looked at before you act, send them to Advocate B.K. Singh's team through the contact page.