Copyright Ownership and Rights
by
Attorney Richard Stim
The person who creates a work is not necessarily the copyright owner.
Many artists, writers, and musicians mistakenly believe that the creator of a work automatically owns the copyright. That's not always the case. Exceptions to the rule occur when a work is created by an employee in the course of his or her employment, or if the work is created by an independent contractor and qualifies as a work "made for hire," or if the creator has sold or transferred all rights attached to the copyright.
When Someone Else Owns the Copyright
One exception to the rule that copyrights are owned by the author or creator is if a work is created by an employee in the course of his or her employment, the employer owns the copyright. Another exception is that if the work is created by an independent contractor and qualifies as a work "made for hire," then the hiring person or firm owns the copyright.
The hiring person or firm will own a work made for hire if the independent contractor signs a written agreement stating that the work shall be "made for hire" and the work is one of the following:
- part of a larger literary work, such as an article in a magazine or a poem or story in an anthology
- part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, such as a screenplay
- a translation
- a supplementary work such as an afterword, an introduction, chart, editorial note, bibliography, appendix, or index
- a compilation
- an instructional text
- a test, or answer material for a test, or
- an atlas.
Works that don't fall within one of these eight categories constitute works made for hire only if they were created by an employee within the scope of his or her employment.
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