COURT: | ITAT Mumbai |
CORAM: | Amit Shukla (JM), Ashwani Taneja (AM) |
SECTION(S): | 9(1)(vi), Article 12 |
GENRE: | Domestic Tax, International Tax |
CATCH WORDS: | royalty, software licensing |
COUNSEL: | Jitendra Jain, Percy Pardiwala |
DATE: | January 21, 2017 (Date of pronouncement) |
DATE: | January 4, 2017 (Date of publication) |
AY: | 1998-99, 1999-00 |
FILE: | Click here to view full post with file download link |
CITATION: | |
S. 9(1)(vi)/ Article 12: Law on whether consideration received for licensing of software programmes can be assessed as "royalty" u/s 9(1)(vi) and Article 12 of the DTAA explained |
If we analyse and compare various provisions of the Copyright Act with the relevant clauses of the master agreement, it is noted that the said agreement does not permit HLL to carry out any alteration or conversion of any nature, so as to fall within the definition of ‘adaptation’ as defined in Copyright Act, 1957. The right given to the customer for reproduction was only for the limited purpose so as to make it usable for all the offices of HLL in India and no right was given to HLL for commercial exploitation of the same. It is also noted that the terms of the agreement do not allow or authorise HLL to do any of the acts covered by the definition of ‘copyright’. Under these circumstances, the payment made by HLL cannot be construed as payment made towards ‘use’ of copyright particularly when the provisions of Indian Income-tax Act and DTAA are read together with the provisions of the Copyright Act, 1957
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