The Government of India has notified Copyright (Amendment) Rules, 2021 which aims at adopting electronic means as a primary mode of communication and working in the Copyright office.

The provisions under the Amendment are:

1.　Publication of Copyrights Journal: The new provision eliminates the requirement of publication in the Official Gazette. The said journal will be available at the website of the Copyright office.

2.　Annual Transparency Report: The copyright societies will be required to prepare and publish an Annual Transparency Report for each financial year.

3.　Provisions dealing with undistributed royalty amounts and use of electronic and traceable payment methods during collection and distribution of royalties have been added.

4.　Registration of Software Works: The compliance conditions for registering software works have been significantly lowered, with the claimant currently having the option of filing either the first 10 and last 10 pages of the source code, or the full source code if fewer than 20 pages, with no block out.

5.　The time limit for the Central government to respond to an application made before it for registration as a copyright society has been extended to 180 days.