Personal copyright of the author – as well as the author’s property rights – are the author’s rights arising upon the completion of the work piece. The author may in no way waive or transfer these rights nor do these rights expire upon the author’s death. Personal copyright is vested with all types of creators to any type of creative works (independent works, derivative works, joint works, combined works). Article 16 of the Copyright and Related Rights Act specifies examples of the personal copyrights of the author, the most of important of them are: a) the right of authorship; b) the right to designate the work with the author’s name or with a name adopted by the author or to release it anonymously; c) the right of the content and form integrity and its fair use; d) the right to decide on its the first publication; e) the right to supervise the use of his/her work.
The aforementioned specification of the personal copyrights is just of illustrative nature. There are also other personal rights the author can enjoy on the basis of other provisions of the Copyright Law such as for example: the right of the author to withdraw from the agreement or terminate it for important reasons of the author (Article 56), the right of access to his/her work piece (Article 52 section 3), the right to object to the destruction of his/her work piece (Article 32 section 2).
Personal copyrights are not just the rights of the authors but also of the performing artists. They are mainly aimed to protect their good name and include: the right to be identified as the author, except where omission of such identification is dictated by custom; the right to decide on the manner of identification, in particular whether to remain anonymous or to use an adopted name. Moreover, the author may object to any differences, changes or other modifications relating his/her original work piece/its performance that could adversely affect his/her reputation.
Author: Paulina Żołnierek-Płotek