Who owns copyright?

In the first instance, the first owner of copyright in a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work is the author/creator – the person(s) who fixes the idea in some form.

This applies except where the author/creator is an employee who creates a new work in the course of their employment. In this situation, unless there is a contract that says otherwise, the employer is the first owner of the copyright. Thus, copyright in original e-learning packages created by a member of NTU staff for use by NTU students, will be owned by the University not the author of the package. See the University's Intellectual Property Policy, available within eCentral, for more details (both resources require NTU authentication).

Remember though that copyright is a bundle of rights and some types of materials, particularly audio-visual materials such as podcasts, used in e-learning packages will contain other rights such as performers’ rights.

Economic and moral rights do not behave in the same way. The economic rights are like any other form of property – they may be sold, leased, inherited or assigned – and they can be dealt with separately.

Moral rights are not property rights in the same way, and can not be assigned, sold or leased, but not all authors enjoy moral rights. Employees creating works as part of their contract of employment forfeit virtually all moral rights to their employers.

Performers’ rights exist independently of copyright and are themselves a bundle of rights including the right of control over the recording of a live performance and the distribution of such recordings. Some performers’ rights, like economic rights, may be transferred.

Materials that are in the public domain, i.e. out of copyright, may be freely used, but should, as with all third party materials, be fully referenced. Guidance on referencing different types of material may be found the Library and Learning Resources (LLR) guide to citing references .

More information about copyright is available from the LLR website.