What is the difference between copyright and usage rights?
Overview
When you hire a creator on Insense, you are paying for their time to plan, film, edit, deliver and in some cases, post the content, but you don’t actually OWN the content. The content they create is owned by the creator and protected under copyright law. Even when the creator delivers the content to you, they still retain this ownership & copyright, but they issue a license that grants you usage rights to use the content.
Copyright and usage rights are two important aspects of intellectual property. While they may seem similar, there are distinct differences between the two;
Copyright
Copyright is the exclusive legal right, given to an individual to edit, print, sell, publish and distribute content. Copyright is created as soon as the content is created and is assigned to the person who created it, without the need for registration. No one else can use it, claim credit for it, or create edited versions without the copyright holder’s permission.
Usage Rights
Usage rights are the permissions granted to individuals or brands to use copyrighted content. These rights can be granted by the copyright holder (creator) and may be subject to certain conditions. They can be limited or unlimited, exclusive or non-exclusive, perpetual or temporary, etc.
Differences
The main difference between copyright and usage rights lies in how much control they provide. Copyright grants the creator exclusive rights over their work, allowing them to prevent others from using, copying, or distributing it without permission. In contrast, usage rights are the permissions granted by the copyright holder to others, specifying how they can use the work.
Copyright covers the overall protection of the work, while usage rights are more specific and deal with the authorized use of the work. In other words, copyright is the foundation upon which usage rights are built. It is important to note that usage rights can only be granted by the copyright holder.
Here’s an example: An author owns the rights to their book because it prevents people from changing it and plagiarizing it, but people are still allowed to post about the book, read it, buy it, post pictures of it, post quotes from it, etc. as long as they site the author and the novel. It's the exact same thing with UGC copyright. Brands are allowed to edit, post and distribute the content, but they’re not allowed to sell or claim the content as if it is their own intellectual property. It would essentially be the same thing as trying to sell a Harry Potter book and say you wrote it because you own that copy of the book.
You can read more about the grant of rights and ownership for the content you receive on Insense in our Terms of Service.
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