What is 'Artistic Work'? Can artistic work be registered as design under Designs Act, 2000?

An 'artistic work' is defined in Section 2(c) of the Copyright Act, 1957 as follows: 'Artistic work' means: A painting, a sculpture, a drawing (including a diagram, map, chart or plan), an engraving or a photograph, whether or not any such work possesses artistic quality; A work of architecture; and Any other work of artistic craftsmanship. It includes a graphic work, photograph, sculpture or collage, with "graphic work" further defined to include paintings, drawings, diagrams, maps, charts, plans, engravings, etchings, lithographs, woodcuts or similar. The definition of a "photograph" excludes stills from a film but includes slides, negatives and microfilm. Architectural works (including buildings of any kind), and works of artistic craftsmanship, such as jewellery or pottery, are also included. Copyright subsists in all of the above, regardless of artistic quality or craftsmanship. Courts in India have time and again recognized that creations of nature can be protected as copyrighted artistic works. For instance, the famous Panda logo of the World Wildlife Federation and the Crocodile logo of the famous French clothing brand, Lacoste, have been recognized as protected artistic works by the Delhi High Court. The requirement of originality, therefore, would not bar a copyright in an artistic work such as a painting or a drawing embodying a creation of nature, such as an animal or a bird, because the originality of the work would be judged on the basis of the manner in which such a creation of nature is depicted and not the idea of the creation of nature itself. 'Artistic Work' cannot be registered under the Design Act. Such work is registerable under Copyright Act in India. Design includes features of shape, configuration, pattern, ornament or composition of lines or colours applied to any article in two or three-dimensional form, or both, by any industrial process or means whether manual, mechanical or chemical, separate or combined - which in the finished article appeal to and are judged solely by the eye. This definition excludes any mode of construction, or anything which in its substance is a mere mechanical device. It also excludes any trademark or property mark as well as any artistic work as protected under the Copyright Act. The Delhi high court observed in the case of Microfibres Inc. v. Girdhar and Co. that artistic work can be divided into original artistic work and commercial/industrial manifestation of such artistic work such as design derived from and founded upon the original artistic work. In the latter case, the work should be registered as a design under the Design Act. Whereas the original artistic work can acquire protection under the Copyright Act as an artistic work or else the protection under the Design Act qua the product created from the artistic work when industrially applied. 'Artistic Work' cannot be registered under the Designs Act, 2000. Such work is registerable under Copyright Act only.