GLOSSARY.
Every word in this list decides something about who owns what. Each entry gives the definition first, then what it does to your position.
C
C2PA
C2PA is the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity, a technical standard for attaching cryptographically signed metadata to media files that records their origin and edit history.
CEASE AND DESIST
A cease and desist letter is a formal notice demanding that a recipient stop an alleged infringing or unlawful activity, sent before litigation as a warning and a record of complaint.
CHAIN OF TITLE
Chain of title is the unbroken sequence of documented ownership transfers that connects a work's original creator to whoever currently claims to control its rights. If any link in that sequence is missing or unsigned, the current claim to ownership cannot be proven.
COMPOSITION
A composition is the underlying musical work consisting of melody, harmony, and lyrics, as distinguished from any particular recorded performance of it. It is the copyright a songwriter or composer owns, separate from and prior to any master recording made of it.
D
DATABASE RIGHT
The database right is a distinct EU intellectual property right protecting databases whose creation required substantial investment in obtaining, verifying, or presenting the contents, separate from any copyright in the database's structure. It gives the maker the right to prevent extraction or reuse of a substantial part of the data, regardless of whether the individual data points are themselves copyrightable.
DEEPFAKE
A deepfake is synthetic audio or video generated by AI to depict a real person saying or doing something they did not, typically produced by training a model on genuine footage or recordings of that person.
DERIVATIVE WORK
A derivative work is a new work based on or adapted from a pre-existing copyrighted work, such as a translation, film adaptation, remix, or sequel, that incorporates enough of the original to require the original rights holder's permission. The right to create derivative works is one of the exclusive rights reserved to a copyright owner.
DESIGN RIGHT
Design right protects the visual appearance of a product, meaning its shape, contours, lines, colours, or ornamentation, as distinct from the technical function it performs, which falls to patent law instead. In the EU and UK it exists in both registered and unregistered forms with different scope and duration; the US instead protects designs mainly through design patents.
DMCA
The DMCA is the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, best known for its notice-and-takedown system that lets copyright owners demand removal of infringing content from online platforms and gives compliant platforms a liability safe harbour.
E
EU AI ACT ARTICLE 50
EU AI Act Article 50 is the transparency provision requiring providers of AI systems to disclose when content is AI-generated or manipulated, including labelling synthetic audio, image, video, and text that could be mistaken for authentic.
EXCLUSIVE LICENSE
An exclusive license grants one licensee the sole right to use a work in a defined way, meaning even the original creator cannot grant the same rights to anyone else, and often cannot use the work that way themselves, for the term of the agreement. It differs from an assignment in that the creator retains underlying ownership.
EXCLUSIVITY
Exclusivity is a license term that prevents the rights owner from granting the same rights to anyone else, including sometimes themselves, within the defined scope, territory, and term.
F
FAIR DEALING
Fair dealing is the closed-category copyright exception used in the UK and other Commonwealth jurisdictions, permitting unlicensed use of a work only for specific statutory purposes such as research, criticism, review, quotation, or news reporting. Unlike US fair use, it does not extend to purposes outside the enumerated list, however reasonable the use might seem.
FAIR USE
Fair use is a US legal doctrine that permits limited unlicensed use of copyrighted material, evaluated through a flexible four-factor test covering purpose, nature of the work, amount used, and market effect. It is a case-by-case defence decided by courts, not a fixed list of permitted uses.
M
MASTER RECORDING
A master recording is the original fixed recording of a performance, the specific captured audio from which all copies are made. It is a distinct copyright from the underlying composition, and ownership of one does not imply ownership of the other.
MECHANICAL ROYALTY
A mechanical royalty is payment owed to a composition's songwriter or publisher whenever the work is reproduced in a physical or digital copy, such as a CD, download, or stream. It is distinct from performance royalties, which are paid for public playing rather than reproduction.
MODEL RELEASE
A model release is a signed agreement in which a person appearing in a photo, film, or recording grants specific permission for their likeness to be used, usually setting the scope, territory, and duration of that use.
MORAL RIGHTS
Moral rights are a creator's personal, non-economic rights in a work, chiefly the right to be credited as its author and the right to object to distortion or mutilation that damages their honour or reputation. They exist separately from copyright's economic rights and are governed very differently in the US and the EU.
P
PASSING OFF
Passing off is a common law claim in the UK and Ireland that stops one trader from misrepresenting goods or services as those of another, protecting reputation and goodwill even without a registered trademark.
PERPETUAL LICENSE
A perpetual license is a grant of permission to use a work that has no fixed end date, but which otherwise remains a license, not a transfer of ownership. The licensee can use the work indefinitely under the agreed terms, but the licensor still owns the underlying rights.
PERSONALITY RIGHTS
Personality rights are the legal protections in the UK and EU covering an individual's name, image, and other personal attributes, generally rooted in privacy, dignity, and data protection law rather than a standalone commercial right.
PROPERTY RELEASE
A property release is a signed agreement from the owner of a building, artwork, animal, or other identifiable private property, permitting its commercial use in a photo, film, or other work.
PROVENANCE
Provenance is the documented history of a work's creation, ownership, and modifications, used to establish authenticity, origin, and chain of title.
PUBLIC DOMAIN
Public domain refers to works no longer protected by copyright, either because their term of protection has expired, they were never eligible for protection, or the creator dedicated them to public use. Anyone can copy, adapt, or distribute a public domain work without permission or payment.
PUBLISHING
Publishing is the business of administering and monetising a musical composition's rights, including licensing it, collecting royalties, and enforcing the songwriter's ownership. A music publisher typically takes a percentage of composition income in exchange for handling this administration.
R
REVERSION
Reversion is the return of previously licensed or assigned rights to their original creator, either automatically after a fixed period specified in a contract or by exercising a statutory termination right. In the US, authors have a non-waivable statutory right to terminate most grants after 35 years regardless of what the contract says.
RIGHT OF PUBLICITY
The right of publicity is a US legal doctrine, created and defined at the state level, giving individuals control over the commercial use of their name, image, voice, and other identifying attributes.
ROYALTY FREE
Royalty free is a licensing model where the licensee pays once for a license and can then use the work under its terms without paying additional fees per use, distinct from a work actually being free of charge.
S
SPLIT SHEET
A split sheet is a signed document listing every contributor to a song and the percentage of songwriting ownership each one holds. It exists so that royalties, licensing income, and credit can be paid out without a dispute over who wrote what.
STATUTORY DAMAGES
Statutory damages are a fixed range of compensation set by law that a copyright owner can claim for infringement without proving actual financial loss, available in the US only for works registered before the infringement or within statutory time limits.
SYNC LICENSE
A sync license is permission to pair a musical composition with visual media, such as film, television, advertising, or video games. It is granted by the composition's publisher and is separate from any license needed to use a specific recording of that composition.
T
TAKEDOWN NOTICE
A takedown notice is a formal request to a platform or host asking it to remove content that allegedly infringes the sender's rights, typically triggering a legal process that shields the platform from liability if it complies.
TDM OPT OUT
The TDM opt out is a mechanism under the EU's Digital Single Market Directive letting rightsholders reserve their works from text and data mining, including use as AI training data, through a machine-readable notice.
TERM
Term is the period of time for which a license or contract remains in effect, after which rights typically revert to the owner or the agreement must be renewed.
TERRITORY
Territory is the geographic scope specified in a license, defining the countries or regions where the licensee is permitted to use the licensed work.
TRADE SECRET
A trade secret is confidential business information that derives economic value from not being publicly known, and that its owner takes reasonable steps to keep secret. Unlike patents or copyright, trade secret protection has no registration and no fixed term; it lasts as long as the secrecy does.
W
WATERMARK
A watermark is a visible or invisible mark embedded in a file to identify its source, deter unauthorised use, or assert ownership, ranging from a logo overlay to hidden digital signals detectable by software.
WORK FOR HIRE
Work for hire is a US copyright doctrine under which the employer or commissioning party, not the individual creator, is treated as the legal author from the moment the work is made. It applies automatically to employees acting within their job, and to certain categories of commissioned work only if a signed written agreement says so.
KNOW THE WORD.
Knowing the word is not the same as having the paper. Drop your contract and DEED will tell you which of these terms is working against you.