What is a “work registration”?
Anyone who is at least somehow involved in the creation of music, stories, photographs and other works of art (well, or what he considers as such) fears that his ingenious work will be “stolen”. That is, simply take and republish, with reference to the author or without. And then they will start making money on it. These fears are not unreasonable: “piracy,” despite all measures to combat it, is flourishing. However, we will not address the question of how to properly file a lawsuit in court. Let's talk about a single service that various organizations and individuals provide to such fearful authors - about the so-called “ registration ” or “ depositing ” of works.
It consists in the following: the author is offered to “fix authorship”, that is, to issue a document stating that he is the author of a particular work. And the work itself is carefully preserved in its depository, in case someone “steals” it and you need to confirm the authorship.
If you conduct a small search, it turns out that a variety of companies offer deposit services. First of all, these are collective management organizations, for example, the “ copyright society Copirus ” and our favorite Russian copyright society . In addition, there are a number of companies that have made registration one of their main activities, for example, a certain “ Center for Certification of Intellectual Performance ”, the website SciReg , CopyTrust, or Dok.Media . However, if you ask for an opinion on such a deposit with lawyers dealing with intellectual property, you can hear a lot of bad things. In my opinion, it is at least useless, but at the most harmful is what we will see from the following.
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The so-called “ intellectual property ” includes not only copyrighted works, but also many other things: inventions, trademarks, appellations of origin, etc. All this is registered by the Federal Service for Intellectual Property. In addition, corporate names of legal entities are entered in a special register , as well as data on breeding achievements . However, all these registrations are established by law and are mandatory. But in the field of copyright the situation is fundamentally different: for the emergence and exercise of their rights, the author does not need to perform any formalities, this is explicitly stated in article 1259 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. The only registration in the field of copyright, stipulated by law, exists for computer programs, however, it is voluntary. But now, unfortunately, many believe that only what is registered is protected by copyright. The “registrars” have greatly contributed to the spread of such an incorrect opinion. But let's figure out what the client will get, who paid for such registration money.
As an example - registration in "Copirus". The client is invited to fill out an application for deposit indicating the work to be registered, in which there are the following words: “I confirm the accuracy of the information specified in this Application and accept responsibility for any possible consequences related to the inaccuracy of the information I have provided.” Simply put, the applicant is “ extreme ": if he incorrectly indicated something in his statement, all the claims will be presented to him. And in the remaining text of the application for registration, it is said that the registration organization was someone who identified himself as the author of the text, drawing, etc., brought by him, and took responsibility for his words. Sparely, frankly.
The history of domestic copyright knows examples of how works were registered by those who had no rights to them, with different purposes. For example, this was the way Windows Vista was registered , and not by Microsoft. Anton Sergo, president of the law and law firm “Internet and Law” (and the copyright holder of “Vista” in combination), just wanted to show the imperfection of our legislation. Moreover, in this case it was a question of registering a computer program as provided for by law. But this is a relatively innocent case. There are precedents worse.
So, in 1999, a certain JSC Rosbytssoyuz registered its brochure with RAO, which included strict reporting forms for the provision of personal services. These blanks were developed by Rosbytsoyuz at the request of the Ministry of Finance, and after they were approved by the Ministry, they acquired the status of official material not protected by copyright. However, the company, having registered its brochure, began to restrict the distribution of forms, demanding that a licensing agreement be concluded for this. And even suing the printing presses that produced such forms, but the result turned out to be a bit predictable: it lost the claim. And the appellate court, retaining the original decision, spoke also about such “registrations”: “As for the registration certificates of the brochure“ Forms of strict accountability and guidelines for their filling and application ... ”, which the claimant emphasizes, they cannot serve as evidence that the claimant has exclusive rights to strict reporting forms, since the Law does not provide for the issuance of such certificates and they are not title documents. ”
Well, quite a blatant case : the story of a certain “ZAO Xylolit”, which registered other computer programs as its developments and began to sell them: “... SA Trofimov, realizing his intention to confer exclusive rights on“ Methods of accelerated study of foreign “Quick Teacher” languages, the text of which was set out in the Instructions to the “Quick Teacher” educational programs for the study of foreign languages produced by IHP “Kvant”, the rights holder of which was IHP “Kvant”, and the author is an employee of the enterprise Goltsov A .V. (Service work), acting through Bashutkin NN and on his behalf, renamed the Accelerated Foreign Language Learning Methodology "Quick Teacher" to "Author's Description of the English Language Learning Method" Intellect ", submitted an application to the Russian the author’s society, indicating Bashutkina N.N. as the author of the registered work, and thus illegally registered in the Moscow branch of the Russian author’s society the work “The Author's Description of the English Language Intellect Methodology” (Intell ect), the text of which was borrowed from the Instruction of the IHL “Kvant”, receiving the “Certificate of RAO No. 2861 dated April 27, 1998 on depositing and registration of a work - object of intellectual property”, in which BN Bashutkin was specified as the author of the borrowed work. After registration of the copyright object Bashutkin N.N. at the request of Trofimov SA transferred the rights to use the registered work "Copyright description of the Intellect accelerated English learning (Intellect) to Trofimov SA, and the latter illegally used the borrowed work in the Intellect learning programs for learning foreign languages produced by Rostov enterprise Ltd. Concern Rostov, of which he was the general director, referring to advertising in newspapers of Intellect programs (Intellect) to the illegally obtained copyright certificate of RAO No. 2861. "
On this fact, a criminal case was initiated, which, however, had to be stopped due to the expiration of statute of limitations. All these cases became possible for one simple reason: the so-called “registration of authorship” does not register any authorship. It confirms the fact of the statement of authorship: that a citizen name came to the registrar, showed the work and identified himself as the author. She can confirm nothing more. If such a “certificate” is used in court, they can only confirm that a certain employee of the company-registrar saw a certain work on a certain day and heard from its presenter that he had written it. There is, however, the possibility provided for in the law to indirectly “confirm authorship” - by fixing the date when the work was presented to the notary. It is provided for by the Fundamentals of the legislation of the Russian Federation on the notariate , and is called “certification of the time of presentation of documents. In this case, the authorship of these documents is not a speech, of course, the notary simply certifies the date when the document was presented to him.
However, experts are aware of this and so. Therefore, all registration descriptions are designed for mere mortals, with the copyright of acquaintances weakly. First of all, this refers to the statement that we have analyzed that the deposit allegedly confirms the authorship. But every company that specializes in registration, trying to come up with something different, hoping to stand out from the competition. For example, the Dok.Media project, besides the registration itself, emphasizes the registration of its website as a media outlet: “Dok.Media is an officially registered media outlet - Certificate No. El, No. FS77-35693. The project is an open platform for the publication of any works. Public placement on our resource of texts, music, songs, photos, design projects, according to part IV of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, will allow you to fix the authorship of your work and the formal date of its creation. "
Publication in the media is one of the forms of publication of the work , that is, actions, after which it becomes available for the first time to an unlimited number of people. However, the publication in any other way entails the same legal consequences and in the same way “will allow fixing the authorship of your work and the formal date of its creation”. However, in the case of Dok.Media, the client also receives a certificate. But on the SciReg website, visitors are promised “a universal system for registering scientific and creative information and protecting copyright and intellectual property”. I intend to identify the author of the service according to the data provided to him when paying with a credit card. According to the information from the main page, you can register in SciReg such diverse things as scientific works, inventions, scientific discoveries, business ideas, scientific hypotheses and much, much more. However, neither inventions, nor ideas, nor hypotheses can be intellectual property: they are not protected by copyright and it is impossible to patent them. When it comes to texts describing all these things, copyright protects only the form of such texts, but not their content.
One quote from the local FAQ looks particularly funny: “Copyright extends to ideas, methods, processes, systems, methods, concepts, principles, discoveries, facts, reports on events and facts that are of an informational nature.” This is a literal quote from article 1259 of the Civil Code The Russian Federation, however, in the original before the "spreads" is the particle "not." I want to believe that she was missed by chance ...
And “ offert ” with formulations like “The customer, in case of his death, is obliged to obligate the defendants with the terms of this contract” you can study on your own.
SciReg appeared not so long ago in a single mini-scandal when one of the illustrations they had registered was borrowed by Riv Gauche, which used it in the design of souvenirs. Regarding the legality of this use of opinion, as always, divided: the author of the illustration claims that her rights have been violated, the lawyer of “Riv Gauche” refutes it , calling everything that happens “PR action”. The headline of the press release on SciReg’s website refers to a “lawsuit” for an astronomical amount of $ 1,600,000, but at the time of this writing, the lawsuit has not yet been filed. Perhaps, the plaintiffs are saving money: by law, at such a price of the claim, they will have to pay more than two hundred thousand rubles as a fee.
Against this background, the “electronic signature”, which offers to certify CopyTrust documents or an incredible number of certificates from the “Center for certification of results of intellectual activity”, looks like a pathetic attempt to originate. Returning to the question of what to do if your work was stolen, it should be recalled also about this. During the trial, you will have to prove, firstly, that the author of the work is you , and secondly, that your work was illegally used by the defendant . The first part is much easier. If you are willing to pay to ease it yet - your business. But it is better to think about part two.
It consists in the following: the author is offered to “fix authorship”, that is, to issue a document stating that he is the author of a particular work. And the work itself is carefully preserved in its depository, in case someone “steals” it and you need to confirm the authorship.
If you conduct a small search, it turns out that a variety of companies offer deposit services. First of all, these are collective management organizations, for example, the “ copyright society Copirus ” and our favorite Russian copyright society . In addition, there are a number of companies that have made registration one of their main activities, for example, a certain “ Center for Certification of Intellectual Performance ”, the website SciReg , CopyTrust, or Dok.Media . However, if you ask for an opinion on such a deposit with lawyers dealing with intellectual property, you can hear a lot of bad things. In my opinion, it is at least useless, but at the most harmful is what we will see from the following.
')
Parasite service
The so-called “ intellectual property ” includes not only copyrighted works, but also many other things: inventions, trademarks, appellations of origin, etc. All this is registered by the Federal Service for Intellectual Property. In addition, corporate names of legal entities are entered in a special register , as well as data on breeding achievements . However, all these registrations are established by law and are mandatory. But in the field of copyright the situation is fundamentally different: for the emergence and exercise of their rights, the author does not need to perform any formalities, this is explicitly stated in article 1259 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. The only registration in the field of copyright, stipulated by law, exists for computer programs, however, it is voluntary. But now, unfortunately, many believe that only what is registered is protected by copyright. The “registrars” have greatly contributed to the spread of such an incorrect opinion. But let's figure out what the client will get, who paid for such registration money.
As an example - registration in "Copirus". The client is invited to fill out an application for deposit indicating the work to be registered, in which there are the following words: “I confirm the accuracy of the information specified in this Application and accept responsibility for any possible consequences related to the inaccuracy of the information I have provided.” Simply put, the applicant is “ extreme ": if he incorrectly indicated something in his statement, all the claims will be presented to him. And in the remaining text of the application for registration, it is said that the registration organization was someone who identified himself as the author of the text, drawing, etc., brought by him, and took responsibility for his words. Sparely, frankly.
The history of domestic copyright knows examples of how works were registered by those who had no rights to them, with different purposes. For example, this was the way Windows Vista was registered , and not by Microsoft. Anton Sergo, president of the law and law firm “Internet and Law” (and the copyright holder of “Vista” in combination), just wanted to show the imperfection of our legislation. Moreover, in this case it was a question of registering a computer program as provided for by law. But this is a relatively innocent case. There are precedents worse.
So, in 1999, a certain JSC Rosbytssoyuz registered its brochure with RAO, which included strict reporting forms for the provision of personal services. These blanks were developed by Rosbytsoyuz at the request of the Ministry of Finance, and after they were approved by the Ministry, they acquired the status of official material not protected by copyright. However, the company, having registered its brochure, began to restrict the distribution of forms, demanding that a licensing agreement be concluded for this. And even suing the printing presses that produced such forms, but the result turned out to be a bit predictable: it lost the claim. And the appellate court, retaining the original decision, spoke also about such “registrations”: “As for the registration certificates of the brochure“ Forms of strict accountability and guidelines for their filling and application ... ”, which the claimant emphasizes, they cannot serve as evidence that the claimant has exclusive rights to strict reporting forms, since the Law does not provide for the issuance of such certificates and they are not title documents. ”
Well, quite a blatant case : the story of a certain “ZAO Xylolit”, which registered other computer programs as its developments and began to sell them: “... SA Trofimov, realizing his intention to confer exclusive rights on“ Methods of accelerated study of foreign “Quick Teacher” languages, the text of which was set out in the Instructions to the “Quick Teacher” educational programs for the study of foreign languages produced by IHP “Kvant”, the rights holder of which was IHP “Kvant”, and the author is an employee of the enterprise Goltsov A .V. (Service work), acting through Bashutkin NN and on his behalf, renamed the Accelerated Foreign Language Learning Methodology "Quick Teacher" to "Author's Description of the English Language Learning Method" Intellect ", submitted an application to the Russian the author’s society, indicating Bashutkina N.N. as the author of the registered work, and thus illegally registered in the Moscow branch of the Russian author’s society the work “The Author's Description of the English Language Intellect Methodology” (Intell ect), the text of which was borrowed from the Instruction of the IHL “Kvant”, receiving the “Certificate of RAO No. 2861 dated April 27, 1998 on depositing and registration of a work - object of intellectual property”, in which BN Bashutkin was specified as the author of the borrowed work. After registration of the copyright object Bashutkin N.N. at the request of Trofimov SA transferred the rights to use the registered work "Copyright description of the Intellect accelerated English learning (Intellect) to Trofimov SA, and the latter illegally used the borrowed work in the Intellect learning programs for learning foreign languages produced by Rostov enterprise Ltd. Concern Rostov, of which he was the general director, referring to advertising in newspapers of Intellect programs (Intellect) to the illegally obtained copyright certificate of RAO No. 2861. "
On this fact, a criminal case was initiated, which, however, had to be stopped due to the expiration of statute of limitations. All these cases became possible for one simple reason: the so-called “registration of authorship” does not register any authorship. It confirms the fact of the statement of authorship: that a citizen name came to the registrar, showed the work and identified himself as the author. She can confirm nothing more. If such a “certificate” is used in court, they can only confirm that a certain employee of the company-registrar saw a certain work on a certain day and heard from its presenter that he had written it. There is, however, the possibility provided for in the law to indirectly “confirm authorship” - by fixing the date when the work was presented to the notary. It is provided for by the Fundamentals of the legislation of the Russian Federation on the notariate , and is called “certification of the time of presentation of documents. In this case, the authorship of these documents is not a speech, of course, the notary simply certifies the date when the document was presented to him.
Chameleon service
However, experts are aware of this and so. Therefore, all registration descriptions are designed for mere mortals, with the copyright of acquaintances weakly. First of all, this refers to the statement that we have analyzed that the deposit allegedly confirms the authorship. But every company that specializes in registration, trying to come up with something different, hoping to stand out from the competition. For example, the Dok.Media project, besides the registration itself, emphasizes the registration of its website as a media outlet: “Dok.Media is an officially registered media outlet - Certificate No. El, No. FS77-35693. The project is an open platform for the publication of any works. Public placement on our resource of texts, music, songs, photos, design projects, according to part IV of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, will allow you to fix the authorship of your work and the formal date of its creation. "
Publication in the media is one of the forms of publication of the work , that is, actions, after which it becomes available for the first time to an unlimited number of people. However, the publication in any other way entails the same legal consequences and in the same way “will allow fixing the authorship of your work and the formal date of its creation”. However, in the case of Dok.Media, the client also receives a certificate. But on the SciReg website, visitors are promised “a universal system for registering scientific and creative information and protecting copyright and intellectual property”. I intend to identify the author of the service according to the data provided to him when paying with a credit card. According to the information from the main page, you can register in SciReg such diverse things as scientific works, inventions, scientific discoveries, business ideas, scientific hypotheses and much, much more. However, neither inventions, nor ideas, nor hypotheses can be intellectual property: they are not protected by copyright and it is impossible to patent them. When it comes to texts describing all these things, copyright protects only the form of such texts, but not their content.
One quote from the local FAQ looks particularly funny: “Copyright extends to ideas, methods, processes, systems, methods, concepts, principles, discoveries, facts, reports on events and facts that are of an informational nature.” This is a literal quote from article 1259 of the Civil Code The Russian Federation, however, in the original before the "spreads" is the particle "not." I want to believe that she was missed by chance ...
And “ offert ” with formulations like “The customer, in case of his death, is obliged to obligate the defendants with the terms of this contract” you can study on your own.
SciReg appeared not so long ago in a single mini-scandal when one of the illustrations they had registered was borrowed by Riv Gauche, which used it in the design of souvenirs. Regarding the legality of this use of opinion, as always, divided: the author of the illustration claims that her rights have been violated, the lawyer of “Riv Gauche” refutes it , calling everything that happens “PR action”. The headline of the press release on SciReg’s website refers to a “lawsuit” for an astronomical amount of $ 1,600,000, but at the time of this writing, the lawsuit has not yet been filed. Perhaps, the plaintiffs are saving money: by law, at such a price of the claim, they will have to pay more than two hundred thousand rubles as a fee.
Against this background, the “electronic signature”, which offers to certify CopyTrust documents or an incredible number of certificates from the “Center for certification of results of intellectual activity”, looks like a pathetic attempt to originate. Returning to the question of what to do if your work was stolen, it should be recalled also about this. During the trial, you will have to prove, firstly, that the author of the work is you , and secondly, that your work was illegally used by the defendant . The first part is much easier. If you are willing to pay to ease it yet - your business. But it is better to think about part two.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/122342/
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