3.4-1 Can authors assign their right to decide whether, when, how and under what author’s designation their work is published for the first time (right of first publication) pursuant to Art. 9 para. 2 CopA to a publishing house?

by iv4n.p4v1c | Sep 29, 2022 | FAQ

No, the right of first publication is a moral right of the author and cannot be assigned. A publishing house may ‘help’ an author to publish a work, but in practice authors are required to assign their rights of reproduction and publication to the...

Inheritance

by iv4n.p4v1c | Sep 29, 2022 | Good to know

Copyrights may also be inherited (Art. 16 para. 1 CopA). The heirs can assert their claims after the death of an author.

3.3-2 The archive of a publishing house releases an illustrated book on street festivals whose author is unknown and cannot be determined, for publication. Can the publishing house claim the status of author because it edited or published the work?

by iv4n.p4v1c | Sep 29, 2022 | FAQ

No, the presumption embodied in Art. 8 para. 2 CopA only applies if the editor or party who published the work knew the author who wished to remain anonymous.

3.3-1 Must authors identify themselves as such on a work?

by iv4n.p4v1c | Sep 29, 2022 | FAQ

No, authors alone decide whether they wish to disclose their names or remain anonymous; they can also use a pseudonym.

3.2-3 A lecturer has not put anything to paper and asks his assistant to prepare PowerPoint slides for the lecture. The assistant prepares them, using their own ideas and structures, then the lecturer revises the slides. Who is the author of the work?

by iv4n.p4v1c | Sep 29, 2022 | FAQ

The lecturer and the assistant are joint authors. They have a joint task, i.e. to add the contents of the lecture to a PowerPoint presentation; both the lecturer and the assistant give creative input.

3.2-2 A lecturer wants to prepare a PowerPoint presentation for his class, but does not know how it works. He writes the text on paper and asks an assistant to insert it into PowerPoint without any changes. Is the assistant a joint author of the text?

by iv4n.p4v1c | Sep 29, 2022 | FAQ

No, the lecturer is the only author. The assistant created the slides as directed by the lecturer and did not give any creative input of their own. The assistant is just the executing person.

3.2-1 Who is the author of a children’s book if one person writes the text and another person creates the illustrations?

by iv4n.p4v1c | Sep 29, 2022 | FAQ

Both of them are joint authors. They are engaged in a joint creative task – in this case, the creation of a children’s book – and are jointly pursuing this objective.

3.1-3 For a project, magazine articles should be digitised and indexed by applying the principles of computational linguistics (a software ‘reads’ the words in the articles to collect and analyse text data). Does this qualify as perception of a work?

by iv4n.p4v1c | Sep 29, 2022 | FAQ

No, perception of a work only means that a natural person (human being) is taking notice of a work (in this case reading a work), not a computer.

3.1-2 A writer is mandated to write the biography of a prominent politician. However, the prominent politician is described in the book as the author who wrote the biography (“ghostwriter”). Who is the author of the biography?

by iv4n.p4v1c | Sep 29, 2022 | FAQ

The writer is the author. This person created the work.

3.1-1 A student is working on their master’s thesis. Does the university automatically acquire the copyright in the master’s thesis?

by iv4n.p4v1c | Sep 29, 2022 | FAQ

No, the copyright can only originate with the student.