Copyright protection is automatic and there is no registration or other formality. The principal legislation for copyright in the United Kingdom is The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The Act came into force on 1 August 1989 and has since been augmented by a number of Statutory Instruments and case law. Ownership of copyright can be complex. Since it is a property right it can be sold, given or assigned to someone else, left in a will or transferred to an employer.
Some works have several copyrights attached.
The film of the same name will have, in addition, further copyrights covering the recording of the music, and the moving image. These copyrights can expire at different times and can be disposed of variously and for different periods. Copyright is usually owned first by the author, though if the work is created as part of the author's job, copyright may rest with the employer. This can also be a complex issue, especially since the law was changed in 1996 extending copyright protection in most cases from 50 to 70 years. This meant that some works previously out of copyright became protected again.