Copyright – When There Are Two or More Authors

Copyright laws are written to heavily favor the author of the work, which makes sense in general framework but can often cause confusion in the real world. One situation where things get a bit strange is when there are two authors of a work.

How could there be two authors of a work? Well, the most obvious situation is where to authors write a book as often occurs when a noted writer is semi-retired and shares the task with a younger writer who, frankly, does most of the muscle work. Then there is the digital world where two or more people might work on the design of a website or database. The question is who owns these works from a copyright perspective? The answer is known as the joint works theory.

What is the joint works theory? It simple says that all authors involved in the creation of a work have an undivided interest in it. This approach is used in law to make sure that each are credited with a copyright position, a decision that makes sense. From here, however, things get a bit murky.

Let’s assume we have a situation where two programmers have a joint copyright in a unique database design. What if they are approached by a third party that wants to buy it and one programmer wants to sell and the other does not? The law holds that neither can sell it so long as they don’t agree to. This is not the end of the story, however. Either of the programmers can license the use of the database to a third party without the approval of the other copyright owner. The only caveat is the party that does this must make sure to pay the appropriate licensing revenues to disapproving party.

Pursuing joint projects is a common theme these days and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Just make sure that copyright issues are dealt with up front so all parties know what they are getting into.

Richard A. Chapo is with SanDiegoBusinessLawFirm.com - providing copyright registration services.