The Right to Make Transmittable is one of several rights granted to the creators of creative works by Japanese copyright law. The law defines copyright not as a single comprehensive right but as a bundle of various rights including right of reproduction, right of performance, right of screen presentation and right of public transmission.
Overview
The right to make transmittable is the right to make works transmittable by some technical measures including uploading the works such as cinematographic works including TV programs and films on the internet. The right was newly established by the amendment to the Copyright Act of Japan in 1997.
Article 23, Paragraph 1 of the Copyright Act of Japan provides that the author shall have the exclusive right to effect a public transmission of his work (including, in the case of automatic public transmission, making his work transmittable). The provision makes it clear that the right to make transmittable as well as the right of public transmission, the right to transmit by wireless communications or wire-telecommunications that had already been protected before the amendment, shall be exclusively attributed to the author. To make transmittable is to record or input information on public server which is connected to the network provided for use by the public or to connect such public server that stores such information to the internet. This right is commonly called the right to upload but in fact, it is broader concept than simply to upload.
Attribution of the right to make transmittable
As mentioned above, authors shall have the exclusive right to publicly transmit their work. Under Article 17 of the Copyright Act of Japan, copyright shall be attributed to authors upon the creation of works. Under the Copyright Act of Japan, definition of authors can differ depending on the types of works as mentioned below.
Author is defined as a person who creates the work under Article 2, Paragraph 1, Item 2 of the Copyright Act of Japan. This definition applies to most of the works which are defined as production in which thoughts or sentiments are expressed in a creative way and which falls within the literary, scientific, artistic or musical domain including linguistic work such as novel, music, dancing, art and architecture, other than some exceptions including works made by employees in the course of their duties cinematographic works, as mentioned below.
Exceptions
The law also mentions how rights will be granted in a number of special cases where the work is jointly produced.
Work made by an employee in the course of his duties
With respect to a work (except a computer program work) which on the initiative of an employer is made by an employee in the course of the performance of his duties in connection with the employer's business and is made public by the employer as a work under its own name, such employer shall be treated as the author unless otherwise stipulated by contract, work regulations or the like at the time of creation of the work.
With respect to computer code which, on the initiative of an employer is made by an employee in the course of his duties in connection with the employer's business, such employer shall be treated as the author unless otherwise stipulated by contract, work regulations or the like at the time of creation of the work.
Cinematographic work
With respect to a cinematographic work, basically, the authors is a person who, by taking charge of producing, directing, filming, art direction, etc., has creatively contributed to the creation of such cinematographic work as a whole. However, in the case where such author of the cinematographic work has undertaken to participate in the making of the cinematographic work, the maker of said cinematographic work, the person who takes the initiative in, and the responsibility for the making of the cinematographic work shall be treated as the author.
With respect to the works such as TV programs, which were created mainly for broadcasting, the right to make transmittable only covers the activity of inputting information into an automatic public transmission server already connected to a telecommunications line which is provided for use by the public shall be attributed to broadcasting organizations.