Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000

• Permanent Page URL

Prospective ownership of copyright.

121.—(1) Where, by an agreement made in relation to future copyright and signed by or on behalf of the prospective owner of the copyright, the prospective owner purports to assign the future copyright, whether in whole or in part, to another person, then, where, on the copyright coming into existence, the assignee or his or her successor in title, or another person claiming under him or her, would be entitled as against all other persons to require the copyright to be vested in him or her, the copyright shall vest in the assignee or his or her successor in title under this section or any other person claiming under him or her.

(2) Where, at the time when any copyright comes into existence, the person who, if he or she were then living, would be entitled to the copyright is dead, the copyright shall devolve as if it had subsisted immediately before his or her death and he or she had then been the owner of the copyright.

(3) The rights of an assignee to future copyright shall not be prejudiced by the fact that an agreement referred to in subsection (1) was made before the commencement of this section.

(4) In this Part—

“future copyright” means copyright which will or may come into existence in respect of a future work or class of works or on the occurrence of a future event;

“prospective owner” includes a person who is prospectively entitled to copyright by virtue of an agreement made in relation to future copyright.