Who owns copyright, who owns rights of use?

"Author is the creator of the work" says the "creator principle" of the UrhG. Copyright is therefore always owned by authors, programmers and so on. Companies or authorities can therefore never be authors, but only "natural persons". If a work was created jointly by several persons, the regulations on co-authorship are valid. This means, for example, that all co-authors must jointly agree to a transfer of rights of use unless they have agreed otherwise. Copyright is not transferable. However, the person may allow others to use the work, copy it, publish it, post it on the Internet, etc. by granting rights of use. The diagram below illustrates options for granting rights of use in an easy-going way. You will find a detailed description of the so-called "Creative Commons" later in this learning module. In practice, it is often the case that the author does not exploit (especially commercially) his or her work by himself or herself. The rights of use of professional authors in particular are very often transferred by contract to publishers, record companies, universities or film studios who then exploit the works.

The creative principle applies without exception. However, if the author has created a work as part of his or her duties as an employee, the employer is generally entitled to the rights of use to that work. As a result, authors - even though they are always the original owners of the rights - are in many cases not authorised to dispose of the rights of use of their work. Especially in the case of employees whose professional obligations lie in creating copyrighted material, it is generally to be assumed that the exclusive exploitation rights (in case of doubt in full) to the works created in the course of their employment belong to the employer.

Something else, however, applies to university docents, i.e. full and honorary professors and university lecturers. Because of their independent research activities, they, unlike other employees, are not obliged to cede their rights to employers (universities, research institutes).

If a professor develops e-learning content as part of his or her general teaching and research activities, then he or she can freely dispose of his or her rights. If the university wishes to acquire these rights, it must sign a licence agreement with the professor. The so-called "university teacher privilege", on the other hand, does not apply to other university members, such as primarily academic or student assistants or employees. They act in accordance with instructions, which leads to the conclusion that they may not freely dispose of their rights to works created within the framework of their official duties. They are thus treated like "normal" employees and must transfer their rights to the employer (i.e. the university). If, however, they create works outside the instructions of the professor within the framework of independent research (e.g. final or doctoral theses), this does not apply. All authors of an independently produced work can decide for themselves on their publication and exploitation (cf. Kreutzer/Hirche 2017: 14-16).