Copyright – What Types Exist and What You Need to Know About Them?

Main Types of Copyright Protection

Copyright protection covers two main categories of rights: economic (property) rights, which let the author sell, license, or otherwise profit from a work, and personal non-property (moral) rights, which protect the author’s connection to the work — such as the right to be named as its creator — and cannot be sold or transferred. A related category, related (neighboring) rights, protects performers, producers, and broadcasters who use someone else’s work rather than create an original one.

The object of copyright is any manifestation of creative activity of an individual nature, embodied in any form, regardless of its value, purpose, and mode of expression. In particular, the objects of copyright may include, for example:

• works expressed in words, mathematical symbols, graphic signs (literary, journalistic, scientific, cartographic articles);
• computer programs;
• products made of plastic and other materials;
• photographs;
• original musical instruments;
• industrial design;
• architectural, urban planning, and landscape architecture works;
• musical and lyrical works;
• dramatic, musical-dramatic, choreographic, and pantomime works;
• audiovisual works (including films).

A work is the object of copyright from the moment of its creation, even if it is in an unfinished state. Protection is granted to the creator regardless of compliance with any formalities.

What You Need to Remember?

Transformation of someone else’s work, in particular translation, modification, adaptation, is an object of copyright without prejudice to the right to the original work.

The disposal and use of an adaptation is carried out with the permission of the creator of the original work (derivative rights), unless the term of copyright in the original work has expired. In the case of databases that meet the characteristics of a work, the consent of the creator is also necessary for the creation of a derivative work.

The creator of the original work may withdraw permission if the adaptation has not been distributed within 5 years from the date of its granting. The remuneration paid to the author is not subject to return. At the same time, a work inspired by the work of another person is not considered an adaptation.

What is Not Subject to Copyright?

Collections, anthologies, selections, and databases that meet the characteristics of a work are objects of copyright, even if they contain unprotected materials, provided that their selection, arrangement, or composition is of a creative nature, without prejudice to the rights to the works used.

At the same time, the following are not subject to copyright:

• regulatory acts or their official drafts;
• official documents, materials, signs, and symbols;
• published patents or security specifications;
• simple press releases, and so on.

Personal Author’s Rights

Unless otherwise provided by law, personal non-property rights protect the author’s connection with their work, which is unlimited in time and does not depend on any waiver or transfer. In particular, this refers to the right to authorship of the work, to indicate the work with their name or pseudonym, to the inviolability of the content and form of the work and its fair use, to make a decision on the first making the work available to the public, as well as to supervise the use of the work.