Copyright also includes so-called "moral rights". These give the author of a work the right to be identified as the author, and protect him/her from alterations to it without the author’s permission. Moral rights may be waived, and in practice often are, in exchange for the fee.

In the UK, all this is governed by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (and subsequent amendments, together with regulations issued under it).

If you have not yet obtained the finance to make your programme, but are still at the stage of developing the idea to a stage at which you can offer potential financiers something substantial enough to persuade them to put up

the production budget, you may need to take out options on the copyright in, for example, a book or a radio programme. In return for a negotiated fee, you will have the exclusive right for a defined period to adapt the work for television. This is an area in which there are no industry agreements, and you will find yourself bargaining (usually with an agent or similar representative) in an unregulated marketplace.

When it comes to bargaining with the broadcaster, distributor or other financier of your programme, what you are selling is your copyright as "author" of your programme. You may sell the copyright altogether (this is called an assignment of copyright), or you may allow the financier to make use of certain aspects of your copyright — UK terrestrial television rights for a defined number of transmissions over a