The Hindu Lit For Life Unplugged: Author and lawyer Xerxes Ranina discusses his book Who Owns What? and the legal rights of creators

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Who Owns What? book by Xerxes Ranina | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

For creators, the question of who owns a script, a song, a photograph, or an idea can become complicated long before the work reaches an audience. Intellectual Property (IP) lawyer and author Xerxes Ranina, however, believes the law need not be intimidating. His new book, Who Owns What?, published by HarperCollins India, grew out of the questions he encountered from clients, friends and people working in the creative industries.

At The Hindu Lit for Life Unplugged presented by Prakriti Foundation on September 5, Xerxes will be in conversation with Ranvir Shah, founder, trustee, Prakriti Foundation, where they will discuss the book while exploring the everyday legal questions that creators often grapple with — from copyright contracts to what happens when someone uses their work without permission.

“The book just came out of questions that people had, clients had, friends had, where there were a lot of misconceptions about IP,” says Xerxes. “The lawyer’s point of view tends to be very complicated. Even the language of our textbooks is quite complicated, so I thought, let’s do something written in a very simple form,” he adds.

The book talks about the common questions that creators have in their minds — “what happens if I write a script, or if somebody uses my music, these sort of questions people have all the time; I just try to answer them in a simple form using examples, case studies and illustrations,” says Xerxes.

For someone who may not understand what IP is, Xerxes breaks it down into categories like trademarks, patents, designs, and copyright. But what makes it different, he explains, is its “intangible” nature. “When you own a house, you know the physical house, but when you own a copyright of a novel or a film, it’s not something physical or tangible which you can touch and feel. It’s more about what has gone behind the creation,” he says.

When talking about some of the common mistakes that young creators make when it comes to protecting their IP, Xerxes identifies two. First is sharing their work without a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). “Let’s say somebody is pitching a script for a film… they are giving out the script to 10 production companies,” he explains. “So when you are spreading it out, you should be giving it under the provisions of an NDA, which says that it cannot be used without your permission. The same thing applies for the art world and music.”

The second biggest misconception is that a copyright has to be registered. “A lot of young people feel that because they have not registered copyright, they don’t own anything. It doesn’t need to be registered; the protection starts immediately on creation,” he explains. However, for trademarks, designs and patents it’s different.

“There’s a promise to pay six months later; they will say that they will pay you a share of the profits, and then that never comes.