Publication right

Publication right gives rights equivalent to copyright to a person who publishes for the first time a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work or a film in which copyright has expired. For details of how publication right might work, including the rights it gives and the exceptions to the right, the extensive information on copyright can therefore be studied. However, there is one major difference:

• publication right only lasts for 25 years from the publication of the previously unpublished material.

It is important to note that the owner of publication right is the person who first publishes the unpublished material in which copyright has expired. So, if you have any unpublished material in which copyright has expired or will soon expire, you should be very careful who is allowed access to this material and the conditions under which access is permitted, because otherwise you could find that another person first publishes the material and becomes the owner of publication right.