Uptodate Inc. v. Dy. CIT (IT) (2023) 150 taxmann.com 231 /105 ITR 707 (Delhi)(Trib)

S. 9(1)(vi) : Income deemed to accrue or arise in India-Royalty Granting access to database and earning subscription fee-Income not taxable in India-DTAA-India-USA. [Art. 12(3)]

Held, that there was no dispute that the assessee collated data relating to healthcare from the public domain and put it in one place creating a database. The content on the database was not created by the assessee but was created by third parties. The only improvement the assessee made was analysis, indexing, description, appending notes for facilitating easy access to the customers, etc. For a subscription fee, customers were only granted access to the contents of the database. They were not permitted to copy, print, reproduce, modify, translate, adapt or create derivative works based on the licensed products. Thus, neither was the assessee the creator of the content, nor had it transferred any such non-existent right. It could not be said that in terms of article 12(3) of the Agreement, the assessee had transferred the right to use any copyright of literary, artistic or scientific work or any other secret formula or process or information concerning industrial, commercial or scientific experience. The amount received did not fall within the ambit of royalty as defined under article 12(3) of the Agreement and could not be brought to tax in India. The addition was to be deleted. (AY.  2016-17)