Assignment and Licensing 4.9Fair Use Provisions

A songwriter in Bandra gives a music label the right to use her song. Is that a sale of the song or a permission to use it? And when a student quotes three lines from a novel in a college magazine review, is she stealing or using the work fairly? This topic puts two ideas side by side: how owners pass on their rights, by assignment or licence, and when the law lets others use a work without asking at all.

In two minutes

Assignment transfers the copyright and needs a signed writing that identifies the work, rights, duration and territory (ss.18–19); a licence grants an interest without transferring ownership (s.30); the Act also has compulsory and statutory licences, and ‘fair dealing’ exceptions in s.52 that let certain uses go ahead without permission.

The rest of this chapter

The full explanation, the cheat sheet, every previous-year question at every mark weight, the quiz and the answer skeletons are part of Intellectual Property Laws on LexBlox Semester. Sign in to unlock the subject, or read Module 1 of Legal Language and Writing free.