Autorinių sutarčių dalykas. Autorių teisių sutartinio perdavimo ypatumai

Abstract

The article analyses the essential condition of the copyright agreement – the subject of the agreement. Thereby, firstly the rights which cannot be transferred are named – they are moral rights and irrevocable economic rights. Secondly, there is an analysis of norms on the prohibition to transfer rights to all future works and provision that the transfer of rights that cannot be applied to the modes of the exploitation of works which at the moment of the transfer do not exist or are unknown.
The subject of the agreement is the transfer or grant of economic rights of the author. The examination of the subject of the agreement is aimed at defining the extent to which the copyright is transferred on contractual grounds. Therefore, the article deals with the theories of legal nature of the copyright agreements as well as the nature of the copyright agreements pursuant to the copyright legislation of foreign countries. Further the study analyses how the legislator of Lithuania regulates the transfer and granting of the rights under two main types of the copyright agreements provided by Law on Copyright of Lithuania – agreement for the transfer of rights and licensing agreement. The differences between these agreements are discussed. Pursuant to the effective legal regulation, irreversible transfer of the rights of the author to a certain work on contractual grounds is not possible, as the transferee of the rights remains in the contractual relations with the transferor of the rights, and the legal rights of the transferee of the copyright on the contractual basis in relation to the work are limited: firstly, the contractual transferee of the rights possesses the rights for a limited period of time; secondly, the transfer of the rights is valid within the territory defined in the agreement; thirdly, the transferee of the copyright is obligated by the copyright agreement to exploit the work (except for the case when the parties agree otherwise), i.e. within the validity of the agreement, he has continued duties towards the person who has transferred the copyright; fourth, the transferee of the rights may use the copyright overtaken only in the ways indicated by the agreement, or only for the purpose for the exploitation of the work stipulated by the agreement; fifth, certain economic powers of the author stay with the author even then, when the author transfers all exclusive economic rights to a certain work by an agreement – if new modes of exploitation the work occur, the transferee of the copyright without the consent of the author has no right to use the work in a new mode; sixth, expiration of the copyright agreement results in the return of the economic rights of the author to the author or another person who has transferred the rights.
It is very detailed legal regulation towards the subject of the copyright agreement in Law on Copyright and Related Rights of Lithuania. Thus the conclusion of non detailed copyright agreement means the grant of non exclusive licence which provides the possibility to a licensee to use the work in the scope of achieving the aim of this agreement.