From the perspective of Vietnamese intellectual property law, copyright holders include authors and copyright owners. Therefore, what is the difference between these two objects and why do they have to be divided like that? This article will analyze and clarify for readers to better understand these two subjects.
1. What is the author and copyright owner?
Regarding the author, Article 12 (a) of the Intellectual Property Law outlines the following concept:
“The author is the person who directly creates the work. In cases where two or more people directly create a work with the intention that their contributions are combined into a complete whole, those people are co-authors.
A person who supports gives comments or provides materials for others to create a work is not the author or co-author.”
Regarding the concept of the copyright owner, Article 36 of the Intellectual Property Law stipulates: “A copyright owner is an organization or individual that holds one, several, or all of the rights specified in Article 19 (3) and Article 20 (1) of this Law.”
According to the Intellectual Property Law, copyright owners can be:
- Author;
- Co-authors;
- Organizations and individuals assign tasks to authors or enter into contracts with authors;
- Heirs of copyright;
- Person to whom rights are transferred;
- Government.
2. Distinguish between author and copyright owner
Depending on each case, the author and copyright owner may be one entity or two separate entities.
- The copyright owner is also the author: This is the case where the author directly creates the work and uses his own financial, physical, and technical facilities in implementing the work because That subject is both the author and the copyright owner of the work. The author will have full moral and property rights to the work at that time. If a work is created by multiple authors, the co-authors are the owners and share the owner’s rights to the work. In addition, in cases where there are many co-authors and each separate part of an author’s work can be separated and used independently without prejudice to the parts of other co-authors, that author is the author. owner of that particular part.
- The copyright owner is not also the author in one of the following cases:
- The owner is the individual or organization that enters into a contract or assigns tasks to the author of the work. When an organization assigns a task to create a work to a person within its organization, the person assigned that task is the author, and the organization is the copyright owner. An individual or organization enters into a contract with an author for the author to create a work, then that individual or organization is the copyright owner. Based on the financial investment and other physical and technical conditions for the creation of works, these subjects hold the property rights to exploit and use the following works. when the work is completed. The author’s moral rights still belong to the author who created the work.
- The owner is an individual or organization that inherits property according to the law on inheritance. Organizations and individuals who inherit copyrights are owners of property rights and personal rights specified in the Intellectual Property Law.
- The owner is the individual or organization to whom copyright is transferred. The basis for arising copyright ownership of the transferee is determined to be the effective time of the copyright transfer contract.
- The owner is the State. The State will be the subject enjoying copyright ownership of the work when the work is created by an agency using the state budget to order, assign tasks, or bid; the work has its copyright owner transferred to the State; The work is still under protection, but the copyright owner dies without an heir, or the heir refuses to receive the inheritance or is not entitled to the inheritance.
In cases where the copyright owner is not also the author, the author will hold moral rights including the right to name the work, have his name on the work, and protect the integrity of the work; The owner will retain the property rights and the right to publish the work or allow others to publish the work. However, concerning the right to name the work (which is one of the author’s rights), the author has the right to transfer the right to use the right to name the work to the organization or individual receiving the transfer of property rights. Therefore, the owner who is the individual or organization to whom copyright is transferred can hold the right to name the work in addition to other property rights.
Above is the article “Distinguish author – copyright owner?“. We hope this article is useful to you.
