On January 7, 2010, the Legislative Yuan passed the Act on the Development of the Cultural and Creative Industry after the third reading. In the Act, the provisions on “registration for ledge of property rights in works” and “compulsory authorization in case of uncertainness of copyright owner” could promote the industry to create pledge financing for property rights in works, provide users with channels for legitimate use of age-old works which are under the circumstance that the owner of the property rights in the books can not be made certain of, and promote the use of works and the development of Taiwan’s cultural and creative industry.
As for property rights of authors, in accordance with Article 10 of the Copyright Law, authors have copyright upon completion of works. The first paragraph of Article 30 provides that, unless otherwise provided, in principle property rights in works shall survive in authors’ lifetime and the 50 years after their death. The second paragraph of Article 30 provides that, where a work is published for the first time 40 years to 50 years after the author’s death, the property rights in the work shall survive for 10 years as of the publishing date. The first paragraph of Article 32 provides that, the property rights in alias works or anonymous works shall survive for 50 years as of the publishing date, but the property rights in a work shall be terminated where the author of the work is proved to die 50 plus years ago.
Although the above-mentioned provisions on property rights in works are very complete, the exploitation of an age-old work may be affected by uncertainness of the owner of the property rights in the work. Therefore, Article 23 of the Act on the Development of the Cultural and Creative Industry provides that, the cultural and creative industry shall have the pledges, which take property rights in works originated from the industry as objects, registered with the copyright authority for establishment, transfer, alteration, elimination or disposal restrictions of the pledges. In addition, Article 24 of the Act provides that, where a user has made every effort to produce cultural and creative products but fail to obtain authorization for a published work in that the owner of property rights in the work can not be made certain of or found, the user may use the work within the permitted range if he obtains the authorization from the copyright authority and pays remuneration for use of the work after the failure to obtain authorization is reported to and reexamined by the copyright authority.
The Intellectual Property Office stated that, the provision on “registration for ledge of property rights in works” in Article 23 of the Act on the Development of the Cultural and Creative Industry will promote the cultural and creative industry to create pledge financing for property rights in works and guarantee the safety of transactions. The provision on “compulsory authorization in case of uncertainness of copyright owner” in Article 24 will provide users with channels for legitimate use of works which are under the special circumstances that the owners of property rights in the works can not be made certain of or found due to the long history of the works or other reasons, promote the use of works and the development of China’s cultural and creative industry, and bring the specific benefits of activating the financing channels for the cultural and creative industry and promoting re-exploitation of age-old works.
|
