Dealing with Rights in Copyright-Protected Works: Assignments and Licences
Rahmatian, Andreas, ‘Dealing with Rights in Copyright-protected Works: Assignments and Licences’, in: E. Derclaye (ed.) Research Handbook on the Future of EU Copyright (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009), pp. 286-316, ISBN 978 1 84720 392 2
34 Pages Posted: 3 Feb 2014
Date Written: June 1, 2009
Abstract
Copyright, in line with all other intellectual property rights, is often referred to as a “negative right”, that is, a right to prevent others from doing certain things. However, this is an overstatement. The content or substance of copyright is the right to use: it is what in relation to property rights over tangible objects would be referred to as incidents of ownership, for example, a right to possession and use, a right to management, to capital and income, or a right to alienate and burden. In the case of copyright, it is especially the exercise of the right by way of alienation or permissions to use.
This chapter deals with the right to use the copyright in the form of the right to assign or license. The right to assign or license depends on the concept of copyright in a given jurisdiction. The object of property, the copyright, has different characteristics in an author’s rights country when compared with a copyright country, and even the proprietary element is less dominant with author’s rights than with copyright in copyright systems. These different characteristics determine the incidents of ownership and the types of use which flow from them. The discussion will show that therefore certain components of the author’s right, or the author’s right as a whole, may not be assignable, and in the light of this restriction, the licence obtains a different role.
Keywords: Copyright, Assignments, Licences, European Law, Britain, France, Germany
JEL Classification: K11, K33
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation