The author is the first owner of the rights on his work. Performers are the first owners of the rights on their performances and sound recording producers are the first owners of the rights on their sound recordings.

• The exceptions:

The copyright on a work created by an employee in the exercise of his employment belongs to the employer, unless otherwise stipulated in the contract between them.

If the work is an article or another form of contribution to a newspaper, a magazine or a periodical, in the absence of any agreement to the contrary, the author has the right to prohibit its publication outside a publication of the same type.

In the case of engravings, photographs and portraits executed to order, the person who issued the order is the first owner of the copyright.

Photographs are covered by special provisions. The owner of the original photograph, negative or any other original product, at the moment it was made, whether it is an individual or a corporation, is considered to be the author.

• Provisions respecting joint authorship:

Works produced by the collaboration of two or more authors in which the contribution of one author is not distinct from the contribution of the other author or authors are "works of joint authorship" within the meaning of the Act. In such cases, the various joint authors are joint first owners of the rights.

Copyrights may be transferred by assignment or by exclusive or non-exclusive licence. These concepts are relatively complex. In simplified terms, assignment is to some extent equivalent to a sale while a licence is similar to rental or right of use.

Consequently, with the exception of moral rights, rights that are assigned by an author no longer belong to him. They are henceforth the property of the person who acquired them. This person can exploit them and control their use by others, subject obviously to the conditions negotiated between the parties. In the case of a licence, ownership of the rights remains in the hands of the person who granted the licence but, in the case of an exclusive licence, only the owner of the licence can exploit the product, even to the exclusion of the person who granted the licence. In practice, an exclusive licence is very similar to an assignment. The granting of non-exclusive licences makes it possible for several people to exercise the same rights simultaneously within the same territories.

The Act stipulates that the person who has obtained an assignment or an exclusive licence may institute proceedings if the rights he has acquired are infringed.

Take care, however! The Act specifically states that only assignments and licences in writing, signed by the owner of the rights, are valid. This is why a producer who wishes to incorporate a work into his multimedia product must acquire the right to do so in writing. It is also important to pay attention to the wording of this document because assignments and licences can be restricted in many ways.

As a matter of fact, the rights on a work are divisible by territory, term, medium, market sector and the scope of the assignment.

This means that the owner of the rights in a work can assign all his rights, in their entirety, to a single person for the entire world, or he can assign his rights or grant licences with respect to certain specific rights, under specific conditions and for specific territories.

For example, the author of a literary work could assign the right or grant a licence to one publisher to publish his work in French, in the form of a book, in all Francophone countries, and assign the right or grant a licence to another publisher to publish an English version in the rest of the world. Although the copyright is in effect for fifty years following the death of the author, an assignment or a licence may be in effect for only five years and may be renewable for the same period if, for example, certain sales figures are reached. The same author could grant or concede a separate license for a movie adaptation of his book to a film producer and cede the latter the right to grant licences to third parties for the manufacture of derivative products, such as an educational game on CD-ROM.

The exploitation of a work protected by copyright does not usually involve one person only. Each of the stakeholders who participated in the making, publication and distribution of a work acquires a portion of the rights, either by assignment or by licence. Each domain, whether it be music, film, literature, visual arts or informatics, has its own business practices in this respect. For each of these domains, we will summarize the practices in respect of ownership and administration of the rights. A table listing the main collectives, including how to reach them and their activities by domain, is attached.

• Music:

Ownership

In the music domain, the rights of various categories of owners overlap and there is a separate mechanism for administering each of the principal rights. The copyright for a song is first owned by the author and, if these are not one and the same person, the lyricist and the composer. In most cases, these persons will have assigned their rights to a collective. These rights may be shared with a music publisher. The sound recording producer, for his part, usually owns all the rights to the sound recording (the "master") that he has made but not the rights to the works that are included (i.e. music).

Performers, for their part, will have signed a production contract with the producer of the sound recording and, if the contracting parties are members of professional artists' and producers' unions respectively, the contract will reflect the terms and the conditions set out in the collective agreements negotiated with those unions.

Administration

Certain rights in the music domain are administered by collectives. In Canada, the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN) administers rights in public performance and the communication to the public by telecommunication on behalf of music authors and publishers, for music played on radio and television, in discotheques, bars, restaurants, and in any other public place. This administration does not involve case-by-case negotiations. It consists in establishing general rates approved by the Copyright Board for each user category. In the case of music broadcast over the Internet, a rate proposal for royalties has been submitted to the Copyright Board but the Board had not rendered its full decision on the issue when this Guide was being prepared.

In Canada, most of the time, administration of the right to reproduce musical works is under the jurisdiction of the Society for Reproduction Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers in Canada (SODRAC) or the Canadian Musical Recording Right Agency (CMRRA). Owners of rights in musical works assign their rights to SODRAC. Where multimedia works are concerned, SODRAC, like SOCAN, has submitted a rate proposal for reproduction of music on the Internet. However, these rates would not apply to reproductions that involve an adaptation of the work or the synchronization of the work with other content, as in a multimedia product. In such cases, SODRAC acts as the intermediary to facilitate the negotiations between the owners of the rights and the users, and grants the final licence subject to the conditions negotiated by the parties. CMRRA acts as the agent for music publishers and does not have the power to grant licences on their behalf. It does, however, provide information on requests about the owners it represents.

For administration of their rights, sound recording producers are represented by theSociété collective de gestion des droits des producteurs de phonogrammes et de vidéogrammes du Québec (SOPROQ), where most independent producers in Quebec are concerned, and by the Audio-Video Licensing Agency (AVLA), in the case of other producers, including the "majors." These agencies are authorized to grant user licences on behalf of their respective members.

• Cinematographic works

Ownership

In the audio-visual sector, subject to certain conditions set out by creators, most of the stakeholders who participated in the creation of the work usually assign the right to exploit the film rights to the producer. In Quebec, the producer will have obtained an exclusive licence to exploit the work under the terms set out in the collective agreements of the Société des auteurs, recherchistes, documentalistes et compositeurs (SARDEC) and the Association des réalisateurs et réalisatrives du Québec. For any music he uses, he will have to deal with SOCAN, SODRAC or CMRRA.

Administration

Rights in films are usually administered by the film producers themselves or authorized distributors.

• Artistic works

Ownership

Rights in paintings and other artistic works may be owned by the artists or be assigned to distributors, depending on the type of work.

In the case of artistic works, one must generally contact the original author (painter, sculptor, engraver, etc.). If the reproduction is made from a photograph of the artistic work, one must also contact the photographer.

Where photographic works are concerned, we have already seen that the ownership rights are complex. If the photograph has been ordered, the entity that ordered it has to be located. Otherwise, the photographer is the owner, unless he has assigned his rights to a publisher or a distributor. Photographers may delegate the management of their rights - or assign their rights - to image banks that provide interested parties with catalogues of photographs and illustrations whose rights can be cleared through purchase of a licence that authorizes certain types of uses. These catalogues may be available in hard copy only or in electronic form. Some image banks do not permit reproduction of their catalogues on the Internet because of the risk of unethical reproduction and degradation of quality.

Administration

There are collective societies that administer the rights on photographs - the Electronic Rights Licensing Agency (TERLA), and on artistic works - Canadian Artists Representation Copyright Collective (CARFAC), SODRAC and the Société de droits d'auteur en arts visuels (SODART). These agencies are all authorized to negotiate specific licences on behalf of their respective members.

• Literary works

Ownership

In most cases, all rights in literary works such as books are assigned to the publisher, except that in some cases the author reserves to himself film adaptation rights and the rights on derivative products produced on media other than the book.

Administration

In the Francophone market, COPIBEC and, in the Anglophone market, the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (CANCOPY) are collectives that administer the rights of authors and publishers of books. In addition to general licences that the agencies negotiate for the reprographic reproduction of works in their respective repertories in educational institutions, COPIBEC and CANCOPY may negotiate on behalf of their members and grant individual licences to applicants.

• Informatics