Property rights of the author to the service work in the copyright law of Ukraine

This work is devoted to consideration of the peculiarities that arise when an employee-author creates an official work in terms of property rights, namely the transfer and ownership of such rights to the employer, who receives them as a general rule at the time of creation of an official work in full from the employee. The study of the above­mentioned issue is carried out by analyzing the consistency of the fact that property rights in full are transferred according to the general rule at the time of creation of an official work from the employee-author to the employer with subjects in the copyright law of Ukraine, in particular with the fact that the author is the primary subject object, the concept of originality according to the current relevant legislation, presumption of authorship, co-authorship, relationship with the right to follow, property rights arising from the author, contractual forms through which property rights to copyright objects are disposed of. As a result of the comparison of the above­mentioned issues, the article pays special attention to the specifics of the legal relationship between the employee-author and the employer, since in terms of the employee’s performance of his functional duties, these relationships are of a public-legal nature, which concerns the creation of an object of law intellectual property (service work), then these relations are private- legal and should not be forgotten. Therefore, in connection with the issues considered above, the article proposes a number of new revisions of the articles (the proposed changes relate to the fact that as a result of the issues considered in the work, it is proposed that property rights belong to the employee-author who created the work, the rights to which the employer receives through the conclusion with by an employee-author of a contract on creation by order or another type of contract regarding the transfer of property rights; the ability of the employee-author to dispose of his property rights and determine the scope and terms of such disposal independently), as well as changes in the approach, in particular, to the understanding of the official work by refusing coverage of the employment contract (contract) of the transfer of property rights from the employee­author to the employer according to the general rule and the use of civil constructions instead. The proposed changes are designed to draw attention to the restoration of a fair balance of the interests of the employee-author and the employer, since, based on the provisions of the current legislation, it is seen that the position of the employee-author is less protected compared to the position of the employer, especially in situations where the salary of the employee-author includes himself and the author’s remuneration, which the employee­author receives for creating an official work.