Quite often in everyday life we come across a concept such as copyright. Let's see what it is.
Terminology
From an objective point of view, copyright is a civil law institution engaged in the regulation of relations related to the recognition and protection of authorship. There is another interpretation.
In a subjective sense, these are the rights of the author protected by law to works of art, literature and science, i.e. what was created by him in the process of creative activity.
Subjects of Copyright
The subjects of copyright may be authors and copyright holders.
An author is an individual whose efforts created a work of art, literature, science, and other intellectual property.
A person who has been recognized by the author has access to a full range of copyrights.
A copyright holder is an individual or legal entity that legally holds copyright. Moreover, it can go to him due to various circumstances.
Why should these concepts be distinguished?
The author is any person who was able to create something in the process of creative activity (wrote a book, opened a new field in science, etc.).
The copyright holder, in turn, will not necessarily be the author. The rights we are considering can come to him by virtue of an agreement, legislative act. For example, various television and radio companies may acquire exclusive rights to use any information in their broadcasting.
Thus, each author is the copyright holder, but not every copyright holder is the author.
Subjective rights of participants in legal relations
In accordance with the law, copyright can be conditionally divided into property and personal non-property.
The latter include the following rights:
- legal recognition of authorship in relation to his work;
- in the name (that is, the ability to publish your works using both your own surname and a pseudonym);
- to freely and openly submitting his work to the public;
- to protect the dignity and reputation of the author himself.
Personal non-property rights, as a rule, are unlimited.
It is worth mentioning that they apply exclusively to individuals, that is, to authors. Rightholders can not always rely on such rights.
The fact is that legal entities can also act in this capacity. This fact once again emphasizes that the copyright holder is not necessarily the author of the work.
We proceed directly to property rights. These include:
- the right to free and legal distribution;
- to show the work and material design (on paper, in photo-audio-video format, etc.);
- the import of copies of works for the purpose of their further distribution (this includes those whose publication was supported by the consent of the copyright holder);
- to perform various actions in relation to the work, not contradicting the law and excluding plagiarism (translation, arrangement, original processing).
The subjects for the distribution of property rights are both individuals and legal entities, that is, authors, copyright holders.
These rights, in turn, already have a term of validity: according to Article 1281 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation (the abbreviation for “Civil Code of the Russian Federation”), property rights take place throughout the life or existence of the copyright holder, as well as within seventy years after his death or disbanding the organization.
Copyright Objects
The list of works that can be referred to in this way is set out in article 1259 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. According to its content, the object of copyright can be recognized as everything that was obtained as a result of creative and mental activity.
The following are not recognized as objects of copyright:
- official documentation resulting from the activities of state bodies;
- symbols and signs of states and other public entities (emblems, awards, currency signs, etc.);
- folklore (works that exist without a specific indication of the author, formed, as a rule, on the basis of folk traditions or customs);
- works that are exclusively for informational purposes (instructions attached to the thing, city bus timetables, etc.);
In addition, ideas and thoughts, original ways of achieving goals, solving problems, and programming languages cannot be objects of copyright .
Ways to protect copyright
Naturally, the copyright holder is the only subject to which the work belongs. But there are situations when it is quite difficult to protect authorship rights for the reason that a person simply does not have enough evidence, which, in addition to everything, must be supported by law.
Guaranteed copyright protection in several ways.
- Seek help from a notary public. In this case, the work is first transferred to tangible media (digital, paper), after which it must be certified (this procedure is not free, the copyright holder must take this into account).
- Publish the work in any source (for example, poems written by the author can be printed in a journal or posted on the Internet portal).
- Send the letter by mail to yourself, and upon arrival do not open the envelope. Lawyers believe that such protection of the copyright holder through cunning is the most reliable.
To notify third parties that the work is protected from plagiarism, you can resort to the use of a special protection mark, which is the Latin letter “C” in a circle.
In some countries, the author or copyright holder may be held liable for the use of this mark for the simple reason that it indicates information that is not true.