FRANCE Law and Practice Contributed by: Vanessa Bouchara, Adèle Maier and Louise Lacroix, Cabinet Bouchara
tions, there is no work-for-hire doctrine per se in France. However, there are specific rules for collective works (ie, works created at the initiative of a natural or legal person who edits, publishes and discloses the work under its direction and name, and where the personal contribution of the vari - ous authors involved in its creation is merged into the overall work): the employer can be con - sidered as the rights-holder if the work has been created at their initiative and under their control, if it is impossible to allocate separate rights to each contributor. Finally, French law allows joint authorship when the work is “collaborative”; ie, a work created through the contribution of several natural per - sons (eg, a song). Each author is considered a “co-author”, and the creation gives rise to joint ownership of the work. The copyrights on a collaborative work are governed under a sys - tem of “indivision”, thus all acts that affect the use/disclosure of the work require the unani - mous agreement of all the co-authors, includ - ing assignments, licensing etc. However, an exception to this general rule are cases where the contribution of each author can be individu - alised from the overall work, in which case, each author may exercise their copyright on their own part of the work, provided it does not affect the overall work. 3.4 Copyright Rights The specific economic rights granted to the cop - yright owner are listed and governed by Articles L122-1 et seq of the French Intellectual Property Code, and include the following: • the right of representation, which is defined by law as the communication of the work to the public, by any means; and
• the right of reproduction, which is defined by law as the material fixation of the work by any process that allows it to be communicated to the public in an indirect way. Authors of graphic or plastic works benefit from an additional economic right, called droit de suite, which could be translated as “resale right”, which results in the right of the author to benefit from the proceeds of any sale of a work after the first transfer by the author or their successors in title, where a professional in the art market acts as a seller, buyer or intermediary. The moral rights granted to the copyright owner are listed and governed by Articles L121-1 et seq of the French Intellectual Property Code. They include the following: • the right of paternity, which entitles the author to request that their name be associated with the work; • the right to disclose the work, which allows the author to decide whether or not to make the work public (however, the author can no longer claim this right if they authorise the disclosure of the work); • the right to respect for their work (right of integrity), which prohibits the distortion of the work in a way that affects its integrity or spirit; and • the right to reconsider or withdraw the work from the public sphere (this right is limited by the obligation of the author to compensate the person that makes commercial use of the work for the economic prejudice caused by the withdrawal). Moral rights are perpetual and unalienable. They can only be held by the author and their heirs, or granted to a third party upon the death of the author, by virtue of testamentary provisions.
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