Assessee, a US company provided online technology learning platform on its website and earned subscription revenue. During relevant assessment year, assessee was in receipt of subscription charges from its Indian customers which were not offered to tax in return of income. Assessing Officer held that subscription revenue was towards granting of right to use any copyright of a literary, artistic or scientific work and, hence, same amounted to royalty. He also stated that subscription fee received by assessee was royalty for information concerning industrial, commercial or scientific experience as per article 12 of DTAA and held that subscription fees received by assessee amounted to royalty under article 12(3)(a) and under section 9(1)(vi). Tribunal held that since subscribers only get a non-exclusive, non-transferable license to view videos on website and neither any copyright in software/database, nor any copyright in videos was granted to subscribers and assessee reserved all intellectual property rights in its proprietary material, and subscribers did not make payment for availing knowledge of assessee’s experience regarding its business of creating/maintaining database of videos, said subscription fees could not be said to be for imparting of any information concerning industrial, commercial or scientific experience of assessee and, thus, it did not amount to royalty. (AY. 2016-17)