Court Disputes of Determining the Scope of Copyright and Related Rights to Works and Phonograms Acquired by Inheritance
Authors:   First Court of Appeal of General Jurisdiction, Moscow, Russia, Dautiya Tatyana V. 
Published: October 2023

The article analyzes the features of inheritance of exclusive rights to works and phonograms as the results of intellectual activity belonging to the testator. The author points out the difficulties that arise when proving by the heirs the fact of the inclusion of copyright and related rights in the mass of the succession and their volume since exclusive rights to such objects are not subject to registration. The author cites as an example the alienation by heirs of rights in respect of musical works, the exclusive rights to which belonged to the testator, provided that the heirs did not know that the testator, as the right holder, during his lifetime, such rights had already been alienated in favor of third parties (for example, on the basis of a license agreement on the rights of an exclusive license) that as a result, it generates a transaction of heirs for the disposal of intellectual property rights that do not belong to the heirs, that is, an insignificant transaction. At the same time, there is no bad faith on the part of the heirs when making such an insignificant transaction. The author concludes that the protection of the rights of heirs will be facilitated by the establishment of a presumption of ownership of copyrights to the results of intellectual activity to heirs in relation to the results of intellectual activity of the testator, in respect of which state registration of such a result is not required by law. At the same time, the existence of any restriction in the use of exclusive rights to the results of intellectual activity must be proved to third parties to whom exclusive or non-exclusive rights to the corresponding result of intellectual activity were transferred by the testator based on relevant contracts. The above, therefore, will lead to the ordering and accounting of contracts on the transfer of rights to such results of intellectual activity in order to avoid proving by the acquirer of such rights under the contract in court each time the fact of alienation of his rights by the right holder. It is concluded that when establishing the presumption of ownership of copyrights to the results of intellectual activity to heirs in respect of the results of intellectual activity of the testator, in respect of which state registration of such a result is not required by law, to persons to whom the rights to the relevant objects were transferred by the testator during his lifetime on the basis of transactions on the disposal of such rights, the burden of proving the ownership of such rights will be assigned to the acquirer, to which it will be necessary to challenge the rights of the heirs in respect of the relevant works, however, in order to avoid a plurality of lawsuits by third parties to challenge transactions on the disposal of copyright and related rights concluded by the heirs in respect of the same amount of intellectual property rights that the testator did not have at the time of death due to their alienation to third parties, it seems most appropriate to file the right holder of the claim at the place of the opening of the inheritance to the heirs on the exclusion of rights to specific works, phonograms from the inheritance.