Copyright: economic exploitation of a work

The author, with regard to copyright, has the exclusive right to use the work;

Possibilities of economic exploitation of the work

Among the possibilities of economic exploitation, Italian law n. 633/1941 indicates, by way of example and not limited to:

• the right of reproduction (art.13)
• the right of transcription of oral work in written work (art.14)
• the right of execution and public performance (art.15)
• the right of communication (art.16, 16bis)
• the right of distribution (art.17)
• the right to development, translation and publication (art.18)
• the right to rent and lend the work (art.18 bis)

Article 19 provides that:

“The exclusive rights above mentioned are independent of each other. The exercise of one of them does not exclude the exercise of the other rights. Their subject is the work as a whole and in each of its part”.

Therefore, economic rights in the copyright law of Italy are a number of powers which can be subject of separate assignments by the author of the work .This means that the assignment of one of the economic rights does not involve, as a necessary consequence, the transfer of further rights of economic exploitation, unless there is a strict link of dependence between the transferred right and another right.

Duration of the economic rights of copyright

The economic rights of copyright lasts for the entire life of the author and are extinguished 70 years after the author’s death. The limit of 70 years after the author’s death exists even in the case of so-called posthumous works , published for the first time after the death of the author (article 31, law 633/1941).

Article 26 , paragraph 1, provides that:

” In the works specified in Article 10 ( works created with the indistinguishable and inseparable contributions of several people), as well as in those dramatic-musical , choreographic and pantomime, the duration of the exploitation rights economic due to each of the co-authors or collaborators is determined on the life of the last surviving author”

In the case of collective works , instead,

“the duration of the rights of exploitation due to each employee is determined on the life of each of them ,” while ” the duration of the rights of exploitation of the work as a whole is 70 years from first publication, whatever the form in which the publication was made , subject to the provisions of Article 3 for magazines, newspapers and other periodical works” (article 26, second paragraph).

In the case of anonymous or pseudonymous works , except in the case provided for in Article 8

( ” is reputed author of the work , subject to proof to the contrary, those who are indicated as such in the forms in use, namely , who is announced as such in acting, execution, performance or broadcasting of the work itself “)” the duration of the exploitation rights is seventy years since its first publication, whatever the form in which it was made” (Article 27).

In the case before the expiry of the term of 70 years after the first publication, the author has proved, or the revelation was made by the persons in article 23 (spouse and children and, in the absence, parents and ancestors and descendants and, in the absence, brothers and sisters and their descendants) or by persons authorized by the author, it is adopted the term of 70 years after the author’s death.

In the case of cinematographic or audiovisual works ,

“the rights of exploitation of the work will last until the end of the seventieth year after the death of the last surviving person from the following people: the artistic director, the authors of the script, including the author of the dialogue, and the author of music specifically created for use in the cinematographic or assimilated”.