- If an employee finishes a work within the scope of employment using company's equipment and/or materials, can company uses the work?
 | If an employee finishes a work within the scope of employment using company's equipment and/or materials, company and the employee can sign a contract to make sure who is the author and who owns the economic rights. If the agreed owner of the copyright is the employee, then the company shall get a license from the employee when exploiting the work. If company does not come to an agreement with the employee on who owns the economic rights, then according to Article 11 of the Copyright Law, company enjoys the economic rights. Company naturally can make use of its economic rights on exploiting the work, which is completed within the scope of employment. |
- What is the term of copyright protection?
| Copyrights are divided into moral rights and economic rights. Protection of moral rights is perpetual. Economic rights are for the lifetime of the creator and for 50 years after his or her death. However, economic rights in pseudonymous or anonymous works, works authored by a juristic person (e.g. a company or foundation), photographic and audiovisual works, sound recordings, and performances are for 50 years from the time of public release. |
- If using other person's designed graph in making company's introduction material, will there be copyright dispute?
| If the said "graph" refers to "numerical charts" or "forms" in common use, according to Article 9 Paragraph 1 Item 3 of Copyright Act, it is not protected by Copyright Act. If the said "graph" means "Pictorial and graphical works" or "Artistic works”, it is protected by Copyright Act. One shall get the economic rights holders consent to make fair use of the graph to confirm with Article 44 to Article 65 of Copyright Act; otherwise, one will infringes the Copyright Act and cause copyright dispute. |
- Does the use of the works of ancient sages in my work violate the protection of copyright law?
| The protection period of economic rights is not totally without limitation. The longest case is the period when the author is alive, and fifty years after his death and his descendants inherit the economic rights. That is to say, the economic rights of the work will be extinguished because of the expiration of the protection period. Once it is extinguished, this work is a public property of the society and anyone can use the work under the circumstance that the moral rights is not infringed (for example, one can not change the content and damage his reputation, etc.) There did not have a copyright law at the time of creation of works of the ancient sages long time ago. It is impossible to apply the current copyright law to obtain the economic rights of the works, and of course, there will be no question regarding the expiration of the copyright protection period. When a work that is "without economic rights", beside the moral right is still in protection, any other kind of use will not be prohibited by the Copyright Law and can be used freely. (Copyright Act §30、§42、§43) |
- Someone has infringed my economic rights. What action can I take?
| As a copyright owner, you are entitled to take the following steps under civil law: (1) You may demand removal of the infringement. If there is a likelihood of infringement, you may demand that the infringement be prevented. (Copyright Act, Article 84) (2) You may demand compensation (for damages). (3) You may request the destruction or other necessary disposition of goods produced as a result of the infringing act, or of articles used predominantly for the commission of infringing acts. (Copyright Act, Article 88-1) You are also entitled to pursue criminal prosecution by filing a complaint with the prosecutor or a private prosecution with the court. |
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