Copyright Transfer: Everything You Need to Know

As a rule, copyrights are transferable. The subject matter of a copyright transfer agreement is the work as an intangible product, not its medium. This results in a separate right of ownership to the medium that embodies the work, as opposed to the copyrights to the work itself. These concepts cannot be equated.

It is also important to note that the transfer of economic copyright does not automatically result in the transfer of moral rights, which are non-transferable. However, economic copyright is transferred in the fields of exploitation expressly specified in the transfer agreement and in the fields of exploitation known at the time of its conclusion.

Copyrights may, of course, be transferred by the creator (i.e. their original owner) and their subsequent acquirer, unless the creator has excluded the possibility of further transfer of the transferred rights in the agreement.

When drafting an agreement for the transfer of economic copyright, it should be remembered that an agreement is invalid in the part transferring all works or all works of a given type by the same creator that are to be created in the future. However, it is possible to conclude an agreement transferring copyrights to a work made to order, i.e. with specific characteristics to be created in the future.

The transfer of copyrights free of charge and an agreement on the transfer of copyrights must be made in writing under pain of nullity.