Copyright for a work is a type of intellectual property, including moral rights and property rights. According to Article 115 of the Civil Code 2015, property rights are rights that can be valued in money, including property rights to intellectual property rights, land use rights, and other property rights. Copyright can be transferred and become an inheritance, including property rights and certain moral rights. Because copyright is tied to the name and author himself, not all moral rights are transferred to the heirs. Therefore, what rights will the copyright heir inherit? In the following article, we will clarify.
1. Copyright
According to Clause 2, Article 4 of the Intellectual Property Law, copyright is the right of organizations and individuals to works they create or own. Copyright arises from the moment the work is created and expressed in a certain material form, regardless of content, quality, form, medium, language, published or unpublished, and father, registered or unregistered. According to Article 18 of the Intellectual Property Law, the copyright for works specified in the Intellectual Property Law includes personal rights and property rights.
2. Heirs of copyright
A copyright heir is a person who is entitled to the author’s property rights and part of the personal rights according to the law according to the line of inheritance allowed by the author through a will legally stipulated in the Civil Code 2015. Accordingly, beneficiaries of the right to inherit copyright are determined to be individuals and organizations. However, organizations can only inherit copyright in the form of a final will.
3. Rights of copyright heirs
Under Article 40 of the Intellectual Property Law, organizations and individuals that inherit copyright according to the provisions of the law on inheritance are the owners of the rights specified in Article 20 and Clause 3, Article 19 of the Intellectual Property Law. As the owner of copyright, the heir has the following rights:
- Personal rights
The copyright holder has the right to publish the work and to allow others to publish the work. The reason copyright heirs enjoy these moral rights is because these are moral rights but have economic value. The right to publish or allow others to publish a work is also directly related to the exploitation of economic benefits from the work and is a premise for the subject to be able to exercise property rights such as performing, copying, publishing copy, distributing, communicating… works. It is associated more with economic factors and assets than with personal factors, honor, and reputation of the individual. When organizations or individuals exploit and use this right, they must ask for permission and pay the copyright owner royalties, remunerations, and other material benefits. In this case is the copyright heir.
- Property rights
- Making derivative works, whereby derivative works are works translated from one language to another, works of adaptation, adaptation, translation, compilation, annotation, selection;
- Performing the work to the public, specifically the copyright heir performing the work directly or through audio or video recording programs or any other technical means accessible to the 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.
4. Ways to deal with heirs’ copyright infringement
In case of copyright infringement, the heir who is the copyright owner can take the following measures:
- When discovering that their rights have been violated, the heir needs to notify and warn the individual or organization that has infringed and request an immediate stop of the infringement.
- In case the above solution cannot be resolved, the heir can sue the violating individual or organization to the Court according to civil proceedings.
- Contact individuals/organizations providing legal services for support and advice on how to resolve the issue.
Above is the article “What rights do the heirs of copyright have according to the law?“. We hope this article is useful to you.
