In 1994, the International Hologram Manufacturers Association (IHMA) published its Hologram Copyright Guidelines. The basic reason for providing these guidelines is to cover the common situations in the production of commercial hologram where the question of copyright ownership will arise:

• Custom made holograms for a customer to use in relation to the customer's trade or business, such as for promotion or product security.
  
  
• Holograms manufactured to be sold, either by the manufacturer, the creator or a separate publisher.

Hologram manufacturers should incorporate the recommendations or guidelines on copyright and the assignment of copyright into their agreements or standard contracts with suppliers and customers.

Guidelines

The Berne Convention, International copyright and holograms
The Berne Convention is an international agreement subscribed to by over 90 countries. It sets out minimum requirements on copyright law. There is no specific law controlling the copyright of holograms. They are treated as copyrightable in so far as they are the result of one or more original creative works. There are few jurisdictions to address the identification of a hologram and the copyright on it. For example, the United Kingdom Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 is drafted to include holograms in the same category as photographs and/or films. That means, according to Berne convention, a hologram should be copyrightable in the same manner as a photograph.

Moral Rights
Moral rights in copyright works had started in Continental Europe since the 19th Century. Moral rights belong to the individual author or creator of the copyright work and are recognized as totally independent of the copyright itself. Thus, when an employee creates an original work (here a hologram) in the course of his employment, the copyright will belong to the employer, but the moral rights will vest in the individual employee. Four rights have received general acceptance as moral rights . They are as follows:

• The right of paternity: This is the right of an author/manufacturer to attribution of his authorship/manufacturing.
  
  
• The right of integrity: The right of an author/manufacturer to prevent modifications to his work/product.
  
  
• The disclosure right: The right of an author to withhold his work from publication/to withhold his hologram product from sale.
  
  
• The non-attribution right: The right of a person not to have attributed to his authorship a work of which he was not the author or the manufacturer.

Moral rights were incorporated in Berne convention in 1928 which lays out the following features, which can be followed by all countries.

• These rights are independent of economic rights.
• Moral rights continue to exist after the author/creator has transferred his economic rights.
• These rights are to be maintained at least until the expiry of economic rights.
• The manner in which the rights are protected is determined by national law which is not, necessarily, a copyright law.

The IHMA Guidelines/Recommendations

The IHMA recommendations on hologram copyrights are given below:
Custom-made Holograms
If a hologram is used by a customer the question of whether the copyright is owned by the hologram manufacture or the customer arises. The same question applies to the artwork and the tools and machines that are used to create the hologram, some of which may be supplied to the hologram manufacturer/originator and some by the customer himself. It is to be noted that a hologram is unusual even if two holograms are made from the same artwork and they could be very different in terms of color, depth, image placement in relation to the image plane and other factors. Thus there will indeed be copyright in the hologram even though it reproduces a customer's trademark.

There are many components in the image of a hologram custom-designed for commercial use. In such a case, there is every chance of having separate copyright in each of these components, which are :

• The customer's artwork or design, consisting of a registered trademark, logo, product, design or brand name.
  
  
• The artwork from which the hologram is mastered, consisting of 2D artwork, video, cine film, slides, a model, a computer sequence or a combination of any or all of these.
  
  
• If the hologram is a composite of different pieces of artwork the final composite artwork may exist as a separate entity.
  
  
• Copyright on the laser-exposed hologram master or the masters from which the sub-master is exposed in the case of a multiple image or multiple channel hologram.
  
  
• The transfer hologram from which production masters or shims are made.
  
  
• The re-combined images on a production master or shim.
  
  
• The Finished or Complete Hologram.

Arrangements of contractual copyright
When a hologram is made exclusively for a customer there are three alternative recommendations as given by IHMA:

• Assigning Copyright: The customer or the client is assigned all rights in the hologram and all artwork stages involved in its creation.
  
  
• Retaining Copyright: The hologram originator or the manufacturer retains copyright in the hologram and all artwork stages involved in its creation.
  
  
• Splitting Copyright: The hologram manufacturer retains copyright in the hologram but assigns copyright in the artwork made for the hologram to the customer.

Agents

Whenever a middleman or an agent is involved, he would normally be deemed to be a customer's agent. A manufacturer's agent would normally have no rights but the right to remuneration in line with their agreement with the manufacturer.

Holograms for Publication

If a hologram is manufactured to be published as a hologram for sale, the copyright is given to creator/manufacturer who made the first hologram from which the published edition is produced.

Manufacturer-Published Holograms

The copyright in a hologram made and published by the same company lies with the creator of the hologram. The creator can be an in-house creator or an independent artist/designer or an outside contractor.

Holograms Manufacturers Association of India (HOMAI)

Just as IHMA, India also has its own hologram manufacturers Association, based in New Delhi. This Association was formed in 1998. The reasons behind the formation of HoMAI are as follows:

• To promote the common interests of Indian Hologram Industry.
• To provide one stop source of reliable producers of holograms.

HoMAi is a registered organization comprising hologram manufacturers, who comply with certain conditions such as :

• Professional preparedness.
• Proper manufacturing facilities.
• Committed to the HoMAI Code for best Business practice.
• Respect for copyrights.
• High technical and security standards.
• To keep in touch with the latest technologies to stay ahead of the counterfeiters so that the hologram users or customers could get the best anti-counterfeiting solutions and rely on the HoMAI members with full faith.