In practice, there are many cases where authors or owners are concerned about registering copyright for their work. In particular, the common question is whether a work that has been registered can be registered again. The following article from VCD will help you.
1. What is copyright registration?
Copyright registration, also known as copyright registration, is understood as an administrative procedure carried out by the author or owner of the work. By submitting a dossier to the competent authority, specifically the Copyright Office, the author or owner requests the State to recognize the intellectual property rights to his or her work. When this procedure is completed and the Certificate of Copyright Registration is granted, the rights of the author or owner of the work will be clearly recognized by law and they have a solid legal basis to protect their rights against any infringement. At the same time, having a Certificate is also an objective proof, helping the process of proving copyright when a dispute occurs to be more convenient and faster.
According to the provisions of Clause 1, Article 6 of the Law on Intellectual Property, copyright does not depend on registration. As soon as a work is created and expressed in a certain material form, copyright automatically arises. This means that, even if the work has not been registered for copyright, the author or owner is still protected by law for his or her legal rights to the work. The law also does not require that the work must meet standards regarding content, quality, means, language or publication status to be protected. As long as the work exists in a specific form, copyright will be automatically established and protected by the State.
Therefore, it can be seen that copyright registration is not a mandatory condition for copyright to arise. However, the registration procedure is still important in practice, because it helps the author or owner have solid legal evidence, creating favorable conditions for exploiting, using and protecting their work against the risk of infringement.
2. Can a work be copyrighted multiple times?
In principle, each work only needs to be registered once. Once a Certificate of Copyright Registration has been granted, the rights of the author or owner have been recognized and protected by law throughout the territory of Vietnam. However, in practice, there are many situations that arise that require copyright registration for the same work. Cases that can be re-registered include:
Case 1: The work has been changed, edited, or supplemented
If the work is edited, supplemented or developed into a new version, the author or owner can completely re-register to protect that modified version. At this point, the work is considered a variation, a derivative of the original, and the new registration will help expand the scope of protection to the newly created content. For example, a book is reprinted with significant content edits or new chapters added, the author can register the copyright for this new edition in addition to the copyright of the original edition.
Case 2: The work is transferred and the copyright owner changes
When the author or owner transfers the copyright to another person (individual, organization), the transferee has the right to re-register the work under his or her name as the new owner. This is a legal way to record the change in ownership to avoid future disputes. In this case, even though the work already has a Copyright Certificate, the re-registration does not create new copyright but only records the change in the owner of the rights.
From the above analysis, it can be seen that: a work can still be copyrighted multiple times in specific cases. However, it should be noted that multiple registrations do not change the nature of copyright. Copyright only arises once when the work is created, and subsequent registrations are only for the purpose of recording, re-establishing or expanding the scope of protection for different versions, forms or subjects.
Therefore, authors and owners of works need to understand the nature of the registration procedure to have appropriate protection methods, avoiding wasting time and costs in unnecessary cases. At the same time, it is also necessary to consider making a new registration when there is an important change in the content of the work, owner or form of expression to ensure that legitimate rights and interests are always protected by law.
Above is the article “Can a work be copyrighted multiple times?” that VCD sent to you. We hope this article is useful to you.
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