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Auteursrecht includes exclusive Publishing rights and allows the author to make and sell copies of his or her work. It also includes the exclusive right to make products derived from the copyrighted work and to publicly Display the work (or to grant Permission to do so).
This is normally recorded in a License Contract between someone who has created a copyrighted work and someone who wishes to use that work. Unlike Patent s, which grant ''monopolierecht'' ("monopoly right") on Invention s, copyrights only apply to specific creative manifestations of one or more Idea s. Copyrights, however, can be bought and sold.

Generally, the owner of a copy of a copyrighted Product can do with the copy as he or she pleases, even without actual ownership of the copyright, provided that no copies are made and the product is not modified. Those who acquire modified copies from the copyright holder are also bound by these limitations.

There are some limits on what the Owner of a copy can do with it. For example, public Display s of the creative work are regarded as a form of copying. However, both Dutch and Belgian law allow for ''citaatrecht'' ( Quotation right). This allows the use of portions of a protected work under a strict set of conditions. Quotation rights are more limited and demarcated than the concept of Fair Use .


DIFFERENCE BETWEEN COPYRIGHT AND 'AUTEURSRECHTEN'


Aside from those mentioned above, there are a few legal differences between auteursrechten and copyrights. One noticeable difference is that auteursrechten grants more rights to Employee s over intellectual and other Property created at work. Artists and Musician s (not just the company with distribution rights) are also granted the right of resale, which means they are entitled to a Royalty each time a copy of the work is published or exhibited. This is known as ''naburige rechten'' (literally "neighboring rights").

Auteursrechten, like the French idea of "droits d'auteur", implies not only legal but also moral Rights . An Author is theoretically given, in addition to the right of ownership, the right to be recognized for the work rather than being criticized for it. Regardless of whether Property rights are allocated to the publisher or to the author, the author retains this moral right.


HISTORY


Historically, governments issued ''monopolierechten'' to publishers for the sale of Print ed work. Great Britain was the first to change this in 1710 with the Statute Of Anne , which recognized that authors, not publishers, should be the rightful claimant. It also entailed protection for Buyer s of printed work in that publishers were no longer allowed to control the use of sold works. Furthermore, it limited exclusive rights to 28 years, after which the work or works would be released to the Public Domain .

The Berne Convention in 1886 first settled the Recognition of copyrights between Sovereign Nation s. Under the Berne Convention the right of ownership (''eigendomsrecht'' in Dutch) was automatically granted to every creative work. The author no longer needed to register the work, and was not required to apply for Protection of ownership.

The Berne Convention is still in effect today. When a work is finished (defined as being written or recorded on a physical Medium ), the author automatically receives all exclusive rights for that work as well as Derivative s, unless and until the author explicitly renounces those rights or the copyright expires. The expiration time differs from country to country, but according to the Berne Convention the minimum time is the Lifetime of the author plus 50 years. In the Netherlands the term is 70 years after the death of the author.


NATIONAL LAWS AND TREATIES


Copyright laws differ between countries. However, there are several international Treaties concerning copyright, including:


There are also many other treaties that settle specific parts of copyright. Examples are the European Directive on Copyright Protection of Software (Europese Richtlijn op de Auteursrechtelijke Bescherming van Software) and the European Directive On Neighboring Rights (Europese Richtlijn op de Naburige Rechten).


MISCONCEPTIONS


There are many misconceptions about copyright laws in the Netherlands.

  • Trademark s and Patent s, not copyrights, govern names and inventions.

  • Although copyright infringement is often compared to Theft , when something is stolen the owner no longer has access to his or her property.

  • Copyright is granted automatically in countries such as the Netherlands that have signed the Berne Convention, meaning as soon as a person creates a work, it is protected by copyright. This means that technically it is not necessary to include copyright indicators such as "copyright © 2005." (However, such indicators are generally included for the sake of clarity.)

  • The word "copyright" has no legal meaning in the Netherlands. Thus the phrase "op dit werk berust copyright" ("this work is protected by copyright") has no legal meaning. The correct phrase is "dit werk is auteursrechtelijk beschermd." The symbol © also has no legal meaning in the Netherlands.

  • Anyone who has made a creative work has copyright protection. An Underexposed , badly composed picture of the Eiffel Tower on a personal Homepage is just as protected as a two meter tall print of a perfect Photograph of the same tower by a professional Photographer .

  • Copyright is only granted to creative, original works. The creator of the work must have used some creativity or a certain creative Decision must have been made. ''Creativity'' is a relative term, however, as this is a legal, not Aesthetic , standard. Passport photographs are an example of works that are not protected by copyright because they are produced in a standard way. Passport photographs are protected by ''portretrecht'' ( Portrait Right ).

  • An author can transfer his or her copyright to someone else using ''securitisatie'', at which point the author receives the current Value of future copyright revenues at the time of public Presentation .

  • Copyright lasts for a ).



COPYLEFT


Copyleft , indicated with an inverted C, makes use of copyright to ensure the liberties of users. Wikipedia uses a copyleft license, the GFDL .


TRIVIA


In the Netherlands there is no copyright at all on the text of Law s and Court rulings; these Government al works can be accessed at all times by anyone for any purpose. However, some publishers of legal texts and court rulings do claim copyrights on the Form in which they present the texts.


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