The author is usually the holder of copyright to the work, including moral rights and property rights. However, in certain cases such as through rights transfer contracts, creative contracts, etc., the author only holds moral rights and no longer holds property rights to the work. That property right belongs to another entity, called the copyright owner. Therefore, what rights does the author who is not the copyright owner have over the work? We would like to clarify through the article.
1. Author and copyright owner
According to the provisions of Article 12a of the Intellectual Property Law, the author is understood as the person who directly creates the work, in cases where two or more people directly create the work with the intention that their contributions are recognized as combined into a complete whole, those people are co-authors.
A copyright owner is an individual or organization that holds one, several, or all of the property rights related to a recognized work, whether or not they directly create that product. Based on the relationship in the process of creating a work, copyright owners are divided into two types: copyright owners who are authors and copyright owners who are not authors.
For the copyright owner who is the author, based on the provisions of Article 37 of the Intellectual Property Law, when the author uses his or her time, finances, and physical and technical facilities to create work, they will be identified as the copyright owner.
In reality, there are some cases where the copyright owner is not also the author, specifically as follows:
- Agencies or organizations assign tasks to authors to create works, including works created according to tasks and works created outside the framework of tasks;
- Individuals and organizations enter into creative contracts with authors;
- A person who inherits the copyright;
- Person to whom rights are transferred;
- Government;
- General public.
2. The author’s rights are not the same as the copyright owner
2.1. The author’s rights are not the same as the copyright owner
In case the author is not the copyright owner, the author only has moral rights that cannot be transferred, specifically as follows:
- Receive royalties;
- Receive remuneration for used works;
- Receive an award for a work of which you are the author, unless the work is not protected by the State;
- Name the work;
- Put your name (real or pseudonym) on the work; be named when the work is published or used;
- Protect the integrity of the work. Specifically, do not allow others to edit, mutilate, or distort the work in any form that harms the author’s honor and reputation.
2.2. Limit the rights of authors who are not also copyright owners
Depending on the agreement between the author and the copyright owner, the owner may have some or all property rights to the work. In case all rights to publish the work and property rights belong to the copyright owner, the author is not allowed/does not have the right to do or allow others to do:
- Publish the work or allow others to publish the work;
- Making derivative works;
- Performing works in public;
- Copying works;
- Distributing or importing originals or copies of works;
- Communicate works to the public by wire, wireless, electronic information networks, or any other technical means;
- Rent originals or copies of cinematographic works and computer programs.
3. What should an author who is not the copyright owner do when his or her copyright is infringed?
When the author who is not also the copyright owner discovers that his or her work is infringed upon by copyright, the author can do the following to protect copyright:
- Notify the current copyright owner and agree on an appropriate solution;
- Notify and request the infringing party to immediately stop the act of infringing upon his or her rights;
- File a lawsuit in Court;
- Contact individuals/organizations providing legal services for advice on procedures, procedures, and solutions in case of rights infringement.
Above is the article “What rights do authors who are not concurrently copyright holders have as prescribed by law?”. We hope this article is useful to you.
