A. Rightsholder Issues
"Rightsholder" is the term used for any individual, institution, organization, or estate that holds copyright to creative works. An individual or entity becomes a rightsholder in one of three ways: by creating a work, by having copyright of a work transferred in a purchase, gift, bequest, or other assignment, or by hiring someone to create a work on one’s behalf ("work for hire"). In certain sectors (e.g., book or journal publishing) or for certain projects (e.g., MESL), rightsholders are predominantly organizations, while in other areas (fine art, music, photography) they are individuals or their estates.
Rightsholders must possess certain qualifications or meet certain criteria before they can enter into an agreement with a service provider. For individuals, these qualifications include proof of activity in a relevant field or profession. Productivity is the form of proof most frequently accepted, although it is defined uniquely from one organization to another. ASCAP, for example, has extensively defined membership requirements.1 Other organizations may simply require proof of creative content: e.g., artistic works for an artist, a portfolio of images for a photographer, and so on.