By Sean Waterman, Head of Intellectual Property
Volunteers play a crucial role in the UK cultural heritage sector. Their contributions span a wide range of activities and are essential for the operation, preservation, and accessibility of heritage sites and collections. This can include creating content that will be subject to copyright.
Volunteers may be writing blogs, creating catalogue records, taking photographs, making short films for marketing and social media, or recording interviews for exhibitions and events.
However, volunteers do not have the same legal status as employees in terms of copyright. Whereas the copyright in content created by employees is owned by their employer this not the case for content created by volunteers who will own the copyright. This means that if heritage organisations wish to use content produced by volunteers, they will need an assignment of copyright, through a “deed of copyright assignment” or a licence from the volunteer.
Volunteers will also have ‘moral rights’ connected to the works they have created. The most important moral right related to volunteer work is the right to be named as the creator of the work. Unlike copyright, moral rights cannot be assigned to another person or organisation, but they can be waived. This means that even when the copyright has been assigned to your organisation, volunteers keep their moral rights unless you ask them to waive them, which in most circumstances is not recommended. Where possible, you can agree to include the volunteers’ name alongside their works if they consent to this. This is a great way to acknowledge the volunteers’ valuable contributions to your organisation.
A good understanding of the legal rights and responsibilities around copyright is integral to managing volunteer roles if they are creating copyright works. To learn more about how copyright relates to volunteer management book yourself a place today for Naomi Korn Associates’ Copyright and Volunteer Management course (Wed 21 May 9.30am-1pm) via Eventbrite or for more information, contact our Training Manager at info@naomikorn.com.