contract-law intellectual-property software legal-terms
In software contracts, does &quot;all right, title &amp; interest in &amp; to software&quot; provide more protection than &quot;all ownership right, title &amp; interest in...&quot;?
<p>Seems that the addition of &quot;ownership&quot; here is limiting, but I'm not sure whether it really is or how it is.</p>
<p>If the language &quot;supplier retains all right, title and interest in and to the software&quot; does provide more protection than the inclusion of &quot;ownership&quot;, what specific additional protection does it provide? Are there other &quot;rights and interests&quot; that an owner of software would want/need that the inclusion of &quot;ownership&quot; would limit?</p>
<p>I've tried reading the adamsdrafting article on &quot;right, title and interest&quot; as well as numerous other searches but I couldn't find any answers that helped with this specific question.</p>
<p>Thank you!</p>

<h2 id="yes-there-are-other-rights-than-ownership-rights-077p">Yes, there are other rights than ownership rights</h2>
<p>So, in fact, “ownership” rights are <em>less</em> than “all” rights.</p>
<p>In most jurisdictions, there are two types of copyright rights: economic rights and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights" rel="nofollow noreferrer">moral rights</a>. Economic rights are the right to profit from the work. Moral rights are the right to be acknowledged as the author and to the integrity of the work.</p>
<p>These can be owned by different people. For example, if I author a paper for my employer, then I own the moral rights and the employer owns the economic rights.</p>
<p>In some jurisdictions (mostly common law) moral rights can be waived or transferred. In others (mostly civil law), they can’t.</p>
