Can copyright ownership be changed after registration?

During the exploitation and use of a work, copyright ownership is often transferred from one person to another due to assignment, inheritance, or changes in business legal status. This leads many to wonder whether, after copyright registration, ownership can still be changed and whether such a change affects the validity of the work’s protection. This article from VCD will help you.

Copyright law regulations regarding ownership

Many people understand that whoever creates the work is automatically the copyright owner. However, in reality, copyright law is not that simple. According to the Vietnamese Intellectual Property Law, “author” and “copyright owner” are two completely different concepts.

An author is the person who directly creates the work through their own efforts and ideas. Meanwhile, the copyright owner is the person or organization that holds the property rights to the work. Therefore, there are many cases where the person named as the copyright owner is not the person who directly created the work.

Besides the author who directly created the work, the law also allows many other entities to become copyright owners, such as copyright transferees, heirs, or organizations receiving transferred rights. This shows that ownership of a work can change during its exploitation and use.

Can copyright ownership be changed after registration?

In practice, changes in copyright ownership are quite common, especially when the work begins to be commercially exploited or transferred to others for use. According to Vietnam’s Intellectual Property Law, property rights to a work can be legally transferred to another organization or individual. At that point, the new owner can proceed with the registration procedure to change the owner’s information on the Copyright Registration Certificate.

Common cases include:

Transfer of Copyright:

This is the most common case. The current owner transfers ownership of the work to another individual or organization through a written transfer contract. For example, a company resells software copyrights to another business or an individual transfers a brand design set to a business partner. After the transfer is completed, the transferee becomes the new owner of the work.

Inheritance of Copyright:

According to the law, property rights belonging to an author can be inherited. When the owner dies, the legal heir will have the right to receive ownership of the work. In this case, the heir can update the owner’s information to facilitate the management and exploitation of the work in the future.

Gifting of Copyright:

Besides buying, selling, or transferring, copyright owners can also gift their copyright to others. For example, an individual may gift the ownership of a set of design artworks to a business or relative. The gift should be clearly documented to serve as the basis for the ownership change procedure at the registration authority.

Cases of changes in legal information for businesses:

Many businesses, after changing their company name, merging, splitting, or changing their type of operation, also need to update the copyright owner’s information. In this case, even if the work itself remains unchanged, the owner’s legal information is different, so it needs to be adjusted on the Certificate to ensure consistency in the records.

Cases of Changes Based on Judgments or Decisions of Competent Authorities:

Some cases involve disputes over copyright ownership of works. After a legally binding judgment or decision determines who the legal owner is, the person recognized as the owner can request the registration authority to update the owner information according to the judgment.

It can be seen that changing copyright ownership is not a particularly unusual procedure, but a very practical need in the process of using and exploiting the work. However, for the change to be legally recognized, the parties need to have complete documentation proving the basis for the transfer of rights, appropriate to each specific case.

Does changing ownership change the validity of copyright?

Many people worry that when ownership changes, the previously registered copyright will become invalid or require re-registration from scratch. However, this is an inaccurate understanding.

In principle, changing ownership does not invalidate copyright protection. The work continues to be protected by law for the original protection period; the only difference is that the person holding the intellectual property rights to the work has changed.

For example, if a business transfers the copyright of its software to another company, that software remains protected as before. The change only concerns the owner and does not create a new copyright or invalidate the registered copyright.

n addition, the law also protects the personal rights of the author even after ownership has been transferred. This means that the person who directly created the work still has the right to have their name credited as the author or to have the integrity of the work protected according to the law.

However, the change of ownership is only recognized when there is a legitimate basis for the transfer of rights. If the transfer documents are forged, disputed, or contain false information, the competent authority may still consider adjusting or canceling the registration information. Therefore, when carrying out the procedure to change the copyright owner, the parties need to prepare complete supporting documents to minimize legal risks later on.

The above is the article “Can the owner be changed after copyright registration?” that VCD has sent to you. We hope this article is useful to you.

Sincerely,

FAQ