Moral rights / rights of author

[hetha77]

Hello,
Last year I was employed full time by a company to design brochures, logos, websites etc for their clients. I subsequently left and have started working for myself as a freelancer / sole trader. Despite having no IP clause in my previous contract, I understand that my previous employer has the copyright to all work that I created in the course of my duties there. However, I also understand that I have the moral rights to the work, namely the right to be named as author of the work.

As a new "company" I have set up a website / blog with a pdf portfolio download of previous work. Amongst these items are a couple of works I created whilst employed at the company. I have since been contacted by that company and told to remove the work and also request in writing any time I wish to show this work to someone. In my experience, any graphic and web designer keeps copies of their "portfolio / past work" to show as examples of the kind of work that they have done and can do - else they would not be able to get any further work (limitation of trade?) I am happy to have a sub text on the download saying "work created whilst at ..." (indeed I have seen this on quite a few other sites). Could you please confirm if I am correct?

many thanks

[AndyJ]

Hi,
Unfortunately there is no specific exemption for authors to retain a copy of work they have created when the copyright passes to another person, although I agree with you, that in the circumstances you describe it is a fair and reasonable thing for you to do.

Copyright can be infringed just by copying, without any act of issuing the resulting copy to the public, which is normally the act which a copyright owner would object to. There are some circumstances where such copying does not infringe, and the most relevant one for your purposes is Section 29 (1C):

[hetha77]

Thanks Andy!
Best, H