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What does the definition of copyright and related rights involve
Copyright is a collection of individual intellectual rights that the creators of scientific works, as well as objects of literature and art, have. The complete list of copyright objects that belong to this classification is legally established in article 1259 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation.
These include artworks in the following areas:
- Literary.
- Choreographic
- Musical and dramatic.
- Any direction of art (painting, architecture, design, sculpture, etc.)
- Programs for computing machinery.
Because every year there are many alternative courses for creating objects that carry out certain tasks, the list that is established in the Civil Code is not final and is regularly updated with relevant fields of innovations and types of copyright objects.
One of the most important aspects of this area of law is that the legal protection of copyright is applied not only for publicly accessible objects but for all others. “An objective form (written or oral)” is necessary.
Individual rights that give the possibility of free use of work are valid throughout the life of the author as well as for 70 years after his death. The countdown starts from January 1 of the year following the year of the author's death.
Therefore, a similar pattern is valid for the exclusive right to works created in co-authorship (the rights are valid throughout the life of the author who lived more than the other co-authors, as well as the next 70 years after his death.
Related rights and their scope
This type involves the unique rights of performers of creative works, producers of phonograms as well as cable or on-air broadcasting, database developers.
At the same time, related rights are applied together with copyright and without.
The current list of objects covered under these rights includes the performance of a musical composition by artists and conductors, the staging of performances by the director and information that was transmitted by the participants of the programs during the on-air or cable broadcasting.
The duration of exclusive rights
The duration period of a particular type of exclusive rights depends on a number of factors. There is the classification below:
- Exclusive performance rights are valid for the full life of the performer. The minimum term is 50 years and starts on 1 January of the year following the performance.
- In the case of a recording of a phonogram, the rights are valid for 50 years from the year following the recording.
- The database is subject to legal protection of related rights for 50 years (starting from January 1 of the year following its creation).
- The rights to the database are valid for 15 years.
- Radio and television broadcast messages are under the full legal protection of exclusive rights for 50 years from January 1 of the year following the recording.
- Publication rights are valid for 25 years from the beginning of the year following the year the information material was made public in the form of a publication.
Both copyright and related rights imply not only legal protection of objects of creativity, but also regulate their use, as well as full disposal. In particular, they constitute the procedure of alienation of rights on behalf of a third party with a fee charged for this.
It is important! The expiration of exclusive rights in favour of another person implies the possibility of lawful and free use of the object of creativity without the consent of the original right holder.
Types of disputes with copyright and related rights and nuances
The main causes of disputes that will lead to the need to protect copyright and related rights are:
- Disputes caused by the need to determine accurate authorship
- Violation of the exclusive right to a particular work.
- Disagreement with the terms of the agreement on the alienation of rights to a particular object of a right.
- Disputes related to the payment of remuneration to authors or performers
- Unlawful uses as well as distribution of the results of other people’s work in public resources.
The legal model of the protection of copyright and related rights
Let us re-emphasize that for the protection of copyright the registration procedure of created artwork is not required. In terms of legislation in article 1257 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, the presumption authorship is established, according to which any person named as the creator on the original or copy of artworks, is its author until proven otherwise. This mechanism allows you to protect most objects of intellectual work without protracted legal proceedings. Voluntary registration is possible only for computer programs and databases, it is carried out according to the author's wish or copyright holder in the Russian Federal Service for Intellectual Property.
However, in order to minimize the risks and receive additional guarantees in case of a dispute, it will be useful to take care of the evidence that you created the work.
Such methods may involve sending the work to oneself by mail, verifying the date and time of the creation of the work with a notary, depositing the work with one of the organizations providing such services. It is important to remember that the deposit of work is a voluntary procedure and is not established by law. And any consequences of this are not established by law, it only confirms the existence at a certain point in time of a copy of a certain work.
The best confirmation of authorship will be the conclusion of an agreement with interested parties to familiarize themselves with the work before its publication. The contract must contain information that one of its parties is the author who created the work with his own intellectual work.
Federal Law No. 149-FL from July 27, 2006 “On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection” constitutes the legal basis that declares some mechanisms for copyright protection in various information environments, including web resources on the Internet.
There are also non-judicial measures that require the immediate cessation of violations and a permanent limitation of access to resources that illegally distribute the work.
Neglect of such measures, generally, leads to initiating legal proceedings. At the legislative level, there are two main procedures for conflict resolution in the area of violations of copyright:
- Judicial.
- Administrative.
According to the Civil Code of the Russian Federation (Articles 1250, 1252 and 1253), there are several options for compensation of losses:
- Compensation, the amount of which is fixed by the court (range from 10,000 to 5,000,000 rubles).
- twice as much as the price of copies of the work or the cost of the right to use it.
The advantages of working with us
Working with the specialists of the Tsentralny Okrug Law Firm gives lots of opportunities
- Consultations of specialists and free rapid assessment of the specifics of the business and the situation of the client;
- Full accompaniment of the process of protection of the copyrights and related rights from recording the violations and sending claims to establishing the authorship and seeking compensation;
- Payment upon completion of the case;
- Efficient and responsible case management (27 completed projects during the last year).
Due to our vast experience in the area of protection of the copyrights and related rights the specialists of the Tsentralny Okrug Law Firm are able to resolve the most complicated dispute. We will help you not only to prove a point and recover compensation from the violator, but also to protect your rights in case of unsubstantiated claims of competitors.
Author is Dmitry Biryukov