Moral rights

Even if you sell your copyright to someone else, you still retain what are called "moral rights." This means that no one, including the person who owns the copyright, is allowed to distort, mutilate or otherwise modify your work in a way that is prejudicial to your honour or reputation. Your name must also be associated with the work as its author, if reasonable in the circumstances. In addition, your work may not be used in association with a product, service, cause or institution in a way that is prejudicial to your honour or reputation without your permission.

Following are some situations which may infringe the author's moral rights.

Example 1: You've sold the copyright of a song to a certain publisher who converts your music into a commercial jingle without your permission.

Example 2: You've sold the copyright for your novel to a publisher who decides to give it a happy ending, instead of the tragedy you wrote.

You cannot sell or transfer your moral rights to anyone else, but you can waive them when you sell or transfer your copyright at a later date. A contract of sale or transfer may include a waiver clause. Moral rights exist for the same length of time as copyright, that is, usually for the lifetime of the author plus 50 years more, and passed to the heirs of the author, even if they do not inherit ownership of the copyright itself.

Registration of Copyright

The benefits

You do not have to register your copyright to have protection in Canada, but when you register with the Copyright Office, you receive a certificate which can be used to your advantage in the event that your work is infringed.

A certificate of registration is evidence that your work is protected by copyright and that you, the person registered, are the owner. In the event of a legal dispute, you do not have to prove ownership; the onus is on your opponent to disprove it.

However, registration is no guarantee against infringement. You have to take legal action on your own if you believe your rights have been violated. Also, registration is no guarantee that your claim of ownership will eventually be recognized as legitimate. Note too, that the Copyright Office does not check to ensure that your work is indeed original, as you claim. Verification of your claim can only be done through a court of law.

How to register

You register a copyright by completing an application and sending it to the Copyright Office, along with the appropriate fee.

Registration is also available online. Business Development Centre provides complete registration services. You can access Copyright Registration form here.

Please do not send a copy of your work along with the application. The Copyright Office does not review or assess works in any way, nor does the Office check to see whether the title of your work has already been used. Many works may appear with the same title, but if each work has been created independently, each will have its own copyright protection.

Please note, however, that you may need to send copies of your work to the Library and Archives Canada. Under the Library and Archives of Canada Act, two copies of every book published in Canada, and one copy of every sound recording manufactured in Canada that has some Canadian content must be sent to the National Library within one week of publication. (Your publisher may have already made these arrangements.) For more information on this, contact:

Library and Archives Canada
Legal Deposit
395 Wellington Street
Ottawa ON K1A 0N4

When your application is received in the Copyright Office, it is reviewed to make sure you have filled it out properly. If necessary, suggestions for changes are made, the relevant information is entered into a computerized databank and a registration certificate is issued.

Once a registration has been issued, the Copyright Office has the authority to make small corrections, such as the removal of clerical errors made in preparing an application or a registration document. However, only the Federal Court of Canada can authorize substantial changes.

Authorship

Since duration of a copyright is usually based on an author's lifetime, it is important for the Copyright Office to know the author's name.
If you are the creator of a work (e.g. writer, artist, composer, or playwright) you are considered its author. In most cases, therefore, you should insert your name and address in the relevant section of the copyright application. If the work was created by an employee of yours, the employee's name should appear on the form as author (even though you own the copyright). If there are two authors of the same work, give the names and addresses of both. If there are many contributing authors, all their names and addresses should be given. However, if the work was created by many people under the direction of an editor-in-chief, that person's name may be given as author.

The author of most types of works is the individual who created the work. For all works normally protected for the life of the author plus 50 years, the author must be an individual as opposed to a corporation.

However, for certain types of works, e.g., photographs, certain cinematographic works, there are special rules defining who the author is.

For these types of works, the author may be either an individual or a corporation.

When deciding who the author of a work is, you must use the rule which applied at the time the work was created, regardless of when the work is registered.

An application (accompanied by the prescribed fee) must contain the following information:

1. The name and a complete address of the owner of the copyright: some authors prefer to use pen names, rather than their real names, on their published works. You may include your pen name on your application for registration, but you must also give your full legal name. This is necessary because, without your legal name, it would be difficult to determine the full duration of the copyright, i.e., your lifetime plus 50 years.

2 . A declaration that the applicant is one of the following: the author of the work; the owner of the copyright in the work; an assignee of the copyright; or a person to whom an interest in the copyright has been granted by licence.

3. The category of the work: you will have to indicate for an application for registration of a copyright, which category or categories best describe your work, e.g., literary, artistic, musical, dramatic.

For an application for registration of a copyright in other subject matter, you must indicate either a sound recording, a performer's performance, or communication signals.

4 . The title of the work.

5 . The name of the author, and if the author is deceased, the date of the author's death, if known.

6 . In the case of a published work, the date and place of first publication. A work is considered published when copies of it have been made available to the public. Also, the construction of an architectural work and the incorporation of an artistic work into an architectural work constitute publication. The following do not constitute publication: the performance in public of a literary, dramatic or musical work, the delivery in public of a lecture, the communication of a work to the public by telecommunication, or the exhibition in public of an artistic work.

7 . In the case of an application to register the copyright in a sound recording, the date of first fixation of the recording must be specified.

8 . In the case of an application to register the copyright in a performer's performance you will have to specify the date of its first fixation in a sound recording, or if it is not fixed in a sound recording, its first performance.

9 . In the case of an application to register the copyright in a communication signal you will have to specify the date of its broadcast.