Copyright and portfolio is a fundamental problem for freelancers who work on assignments where copyright transfer regulations apply. What can be in a portfolio? Portfolios and copyright are a subject. Here you will find out what you can include in a portfolio under copyright law, and what you must ask your client for. When selling your work – whether it is graphics, text or animation – we often draw up an agreement with the client in which we transfer all copyrights to them. So can we include this assignment in our portfolio without asking for their consent?
Copyright and portfolio
In order to be able to precisely answer the question in the previous paragraph, we must first understand what exactly the so-” transfer of copyright ” concerns. In reality, it is about copyright property rights – that is, the rights to manage and earn money from a given work . While in the case of an employment contract, the situation is clear – the employer by default acquires the fruits of our work, from which he can continue to earn money, in the case of a contract for specific work and a contract for services, such a transfer takes place under an additional agreement on the transfer of copyright . The details of this are in Article 12, Section 1 of the Act on Copyright and Rights :
Unless otherwise provided
By law or an employment contract, an employer whose employee a work as a result of performing duties resulting from the employment relationship acquires the author’s economic rights upon acceptance of the work chinese overseas british database within the limits resulting from the purpose of the employment contract and the unanimous intention of the parties.
The above article shows that, in fact, from the moment of transfer of rights, they are by the acquirer. However, other regulations apply here – mainly those on the protection of personal rights and the inseparable bond of the author with his work . This mainly concerns the rights to:
Designations of the author of the work,
Inviolability of form and content as well as use of the work in accordance with its purpose,
Deciding on the first publication of the work,
Supervision over the use of the work
Portfolio and copyrights – civil law contract
In the case of freelancers, there is make the most of for customer retention no institution of the presumption of transfer of property rights to the client – and therefore, the entire situation is on the basis of a separate agreement drawn up between the client and the contractor.
Often, such agreements – especially those
by the client – contain confidentiality clauses or otherwise exclude the use of the work for marketing purposes (and creating a portfolio is usually such). Such provisions are not completely pointless – they calling list are to protect the confidentiality of the project (e.g. if the purpose of the order is to visualize an innovative car model).
So remember to read carefully what you are signing. Both the copyright (i.e. the right to earn money from a given work) and the moral rights to the work (i.e. the right to sign the work or influence its use) are to the creator from the moment the work is – and only you can voluntarily get rid of them .