16.1 Rights

16.1.1 IPR/Copyright

The intellectual property rights associated with a moving image work are described by a range of terms across different legal traditions and professional contexts, including copyright, authors’ rights (droit d’auteur), related or neighbouring rights, rights ownership, or simply “rights”. These rights form part of the broader field of intellectual property, which also includes areas such as trademarks, patents, design rights, database rights, performers’ rights, and moral rights. In the audiovisual context, multiple forms of intellectual property may coexist within a single work, reflecting the collaborative and composite nature of moving image production.

Internationally, copyright systems broadly fall within two overlapping traditions: copyright systems, historically associated with common law jurisdictions, and authors’ rights systems (droit d’auteur), more commonly associated with civil law traditions. In copyright systems associated with common-law traditions, rights are often treated primarily as transferable economic property interests. By contrast, droit d’auteur systems place greater emphasis on the personal relationship between author and work, particularly through moral rights such as attribution and integrity, which in some jurisdictions may be perpetual, un-waivable, or non-transferable. While these systems differ in emphasis, most countries participate in shared international frameworks established through treaties such as the Berne Convention, the Rome Convention, and agreements administered by the World Intellectual Property Organisation and the World Trade Organisation.

It is important to note that intellectual property rights in a moving image work are created automatically, regardless of any requirement for formal registration by the creators or copyright owners of the work.

Rights information may apply differently at the levels of the Work, Manifestation, and Item. Cataloguers should distinguish carefully between these levels, as the legal, contractual, and operational rights associated with each may differ substantially.

Rights associated with a Work or Variant primarily concern intellectual property rights arising from the creation of the moving image work itself and its component elements; these are generally abstract and independent of any particular physical or digital embodiment of the work.

Rights associated with a Manifestation generally concern the authorised exploitation, publication, distribution, or dissemination of a particular version or release of a Work.

Rights associated with an Item generally concern the ownership, custody, access conditions, or permitted handling of a specific physical or digital object held by an archive or collection. These may arise through contract, deposit agreement, institutional policy, or practical conservation requirements rather than copyright law itself.