Importance of Copyright and Intellectual Property in the Academic Context

2. Copyrighted Work

Copyrighted work is an original intellectual creation in the literary, scientific, or artistic field that has an individual character, regardless of the manner or form of expression, its type, value, or purpose.

Any work that meets this definition may be protected by copyright. It is important to emphasise that copyright protects expressions, that is, concrete realisations of ideas, and not ideas themselves, procedures, methods of operation, or mathematical concepts.

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The Copyright and Related Rights Act lists characteristic examples of works of authorship, such as linguistic works, which include computer programs, musical works, dramatic works, and dramatico-musical works. Further information is available via the link.

At higher education institutions, works of authorship are created in all forms of professional activity, particularly in teaching. These include lectures, presentations, and other teaching and didactic materials that represent original intellectual creations in the scientific, literary, or artistic field and have an individual character.

Other examples of works of authorship at higher education institutions include professional or scientific articles, books, and other written texts created through scientific work and research, as well as maps, graphs, tables, plans, sketches, drawings, and other representations of a scientific or technical nature, provided that they are original intellectual creations of their authors.

At certain higher education institutions, special types of works of authorship are also created, such as computer programs, designs, architectural works, and databases, which also qualify as works of authorship.

An author is a natural person who has created a work of authorship. In scientific and research activities, works of authorship are often created by several individuals. In such cases, the law distinguishes between:

• Joint work (work of joint authorship) which is created through the collaboration of two or more authors whose contributions cannot be used independently (for example, a scientific article written by several authors without a clear division of authorship by sections). Joint authors hold the copyright jointly.
• Composite work, which is created by combining separate works of authorship by several authors into a single whole (e.g., a book consisting of chapters written by different authors). The book as a whole is considered a composite work, while each chapter remains a separate work. Relationships between authors are regulated by contract, and in cases of doubt, authors are deemed to share remuneration equally.

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