Copyright
The details about GST rate changes for Copyright Services are being updated here. The notification changes on exemptions for GST for sale of Copyright Services and other circulars related to GST for Copyright Services are updated in this website.
Goods and Service Tax (GST) rate tariff in India is designed in 6 categories of goods and services. Four main GST rate slabs framed with Essential goods and services, Standard goods and services and luxury goods and services with 5%, 12%, 18% and 28% respectively. Commonly used Goods and Services at 5%, Standard Goods and Services fall under 1st slab at 12%,
Standard Goods and Services fall under 2nd Slab at 18% and Special category of Goods and Services including luxury – 28%. The most essential goods and services attract nil rate of GST under Exempted Categories. Luxury goods and services and certain specific goods and services attract additional cess than 28% GST.
The position with respect to copyrights, however, is slightly different. The Delhi High Court has held that copyrights in India are not “property rights”, but are “statutory rights. For this, the Delhi High Court relied on s 16 of the Copyright Act, 1957 which states that there can be no copyright outside of the statute. The High Court held, therefore, that after copyright became a statutory right in India these are not property rights granted in common law, but are special rights granted exclusively by the statute. If a right relating to a copyrightable work is not found in the statute, such a right does not exist. Therefore, copyrights in India are not “moveable property” and hence not “goods”.
However, it must be kept in mind that there is a distinction between a “copyright” and a “copyrighted article”. Once the copyright is embedded in a physical form in an article, such as a book or a CD, then the article is obviously a moveable property, and will therefore be a “good”. It was on this basis that the Supreme Court held that VAT could be imposed on sale of software.