Beneficial owner

Beneficial owner is a legal term where specific property rights ("use and title") in equity belong to a person even though legal title of the property belongs to another person. Beneficial owner is subject to a state's statutory laws regulating interest or title transfer. This often relates where the legal title owner has implied trustee duties to the beneficial owner.
Under United States copyright law, an author may transfer some rights to the copyright owner (often an employer) while retaining a future "reversionary interest," such as that of copyright renewal. For example, "[t]he legal or beneficial owner of an exclusive right under a copyright . . . to institute an action for any infringement of that particular right committed while he or she is the official owmer of it." 
A common example of a beneficial owner is the real or true owner of funds held by a nominee bank or for stocks held in the name of a brokerage firm.