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.

Another exception to the general rule that the creator owns the copyright occurs if the creator has sold the entire copyright, the purchasing business or person becomes the copyright owner.

Copyright Ownership in Joint Works

When two or more authors prepare a work with the intent to combine their contributions into inseparable or interdependent parts, the work is considered joint work and the authors are considered joint copyright owners.

The most common example of a joint work is when a book or article has two or more authors. However, if a book is written primarily by one author, but another author contributes a specific chapter to the book and is given credit for that chapter, then this probably wouldn't be a joint work because the contributions aren't inseparable or interdependent.

If at the time of creation, the authors did not intend their works to be part of an inseparable whole, the fact that their works are later put together does not create a joint work. Rather, the result is considered a collective work. In this case, each author owns a copyright in only the material he or she added to the finished product.

For example, in the 1950s, Vladimir writes a famous novel full of complex literary allusions. In the 1980s, his publisher issues a student edition of the work with detailed annotations written by an English professor. The student edition is a collective work. Vladimir owns the copyright in the novel, but the professor owns the annotations.

The U.S. Copyright Office considers joint copyright owners to have an equal right to register and enforce the copyright. Unless the joint owners make a written agreement to the contrary, each copyright owner has the right to commercially exploit the copyright, provided that the other copyright owners get an equal share of the proceeds.

Rights Belonging to the Copyright Owner

The Copyright Act of 1976 grants a number of exclusive rights to copyright owners, including the:

• reproduction right -- the right to make copies of a protected work
• distribution right -- the right to sell or otherwise distribute copies to the public
• right to create adaptations -- the right to prepare new works based on the protected work (called derivative works), and
• performance and display rights -- the rights to perform a protected work (such as a stageplay) or to display a work in public.

This bundle of rights allows a copyright owner to be flexible when deciding how to realize commercial gain from the underlying work; the owner may sell or license any of the rights.

Transfer of Copyright Owner's Rights

When a copyright owner wishes to commercially exploit the work covered by the copyright, the owner typically transfers one or more of these rights to the person or entity who will be responsible for getting the work to market, such as a book or software publisher.

When transferring copyright, it is common for a copyright owner to place some limitations on the rights being transferred. For example, the owner may limit the transfer to a specific period of time, allow the right to be exercised only in a specific part of the country or world, or require that the right be exercised only through certain media, such as hardcover books, audiotapes, magazines, or computers. When only some of the rights associated with the copyright are transferred, it is known as a "license."

An exclusive license exists when the transferred rights can be exercised only by the owner of the license (the licensee), and no one else -- including the person who granted the license (the licensor). If the license allows others (including the licensor) to exercise the same rights being transferred in the license, the license is said to be nonexclusive.

The U.S. Copyright Office allows buyers of exclusive and non-exclusive copyright rights to record the transfers in the U.S. Copyright Office. This helps to protect the buyers in case the original copyright owner later tries to transfer the same rights to another party.

Transfers of copyright ownership are unique in one respect. Authors or their heirs have the right to terminate any transfer of copyright ownership 35 to 40 years after it is made.