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Basics
| Sorting Through U.T. Ownership | Getting
Permission
People typically
need to know who owns what for two reasons:
- They are creating a work,
either alone or in collaboration with others, and want to know who will
own what or who will have what rights in the finished work.
- They want to use another's
work beyond the bounds of fair use and need to know whom to ask for
permission.
The basics of who owns what
are the same regardless of which concern one has, so we will cover the
basics first, then apply them to these two situations.
If you
are creating Courseware, please use our new Courseware Contracts forms
to help you generate draft contracts! The contracts will address who
owns the Courseware, who has what rights to use it, for how long, and
a host of other issues.
- The
author is usually the owner.
- Except
when the work-for-hire rules apply: The author's employer
owns work(s)
- created by an employee
within the scope of employment, or
- that fall within
one or more of the nine statutory categories, where the agreement
commissioning the work is documented in writing and signed by
the author before work begins
- The nine statutory
categories include: contribution to a collective work; part
of a movie or other audiovisual work; a translation; a supplementary
work; a compilation; an instructional text; a test; answer
material for a test; or an atlas.
- If a work does not fit
within the statutory definition of a work-for-hire, the employer
may still own it if it is created pursuant to a contract with an
assignment of copyright.
- An author-owner is free
to assign copyright to anyone, so a written contract can change
these basic rules.
- Many publishers
require assignment of copyright as a condition of publication.
- The U.T.
System Intellectual Property Policy also changes the ownership rules:
- Ownership can be complicated.
Some categories of works that used to be distinct and about which there
were few issues of ownership may now be merged into a single work.
- Scholarly works owned
by faculty members can be implemented in software, which is usually
identified as an invention and owned by the Board. The following
Policies sort through these situations:
- Other issues arise because
of collaboration. The more cooks there are stirring the stew, the more
complicated it becomes to figure out who owns what. This kind of complication
arises in the following circumstances:
- In order to be joint authors
of a work, each person must:
- Contribute copyrightable
expression and
- Intend at the time the
work is created that all contributors will be joint owners of the
whole finished work
- Finally, some issues arise
because University resources are scarce and must be allocated wisely
and recovered when possible. So, even if the University is not an owner
of a work under the work-for-hire rules, the University may have an
interest in acquiring rights or recovering its investment in a work
created with significant amounts or kinds of University
resources. If such a work is commercialized, the University may
even wish to share in the royalties. All of these rights should be addressed
in a contract.
Sorting
Through Ownership
of Copyright Works Created on
University Campuses
If you would like to use the
form below to analyze who owns a copyright work, please keep in mind that
it is designed for works that faculty or staff members on a University
campus might create. For example, ownership of rights in a movie production
would be beyond the form's capacity to respond. The law that applies is
the same, but the creation of a sufficiently sensitive form would be way
beyond my capabilities!
If you are just beginning to
create a work, please take advantage of our Courseware
Contracts form to generate a draft contract.
Who is an
Author?
An author is someone who contributes
copyrightable expression to the work.
What
is Copyrightable Expression?
Copyrightable expression is
original authorship, fixed in a tangible medium of expression.
Examples of copyrightable
expression, assuming they are original, could be:
Poetry; prose; computer
programming; artwork; musical notation; recorded music and/or song;
animations; video footage; Java applets; a Web page; architectural
drawings; photographs.
Examples that do not qualify
as copyrightable expression:
Mere facts; exact duplications
of public domain works; ideas; systems; works created by employees
of the Federal Government; titles and short phrases; logos and slogans;
forms that only collect information (rather than provide information).
Enter the name
of an author of the work in question:
If you will apply
this information about ownership to the problem of getting permission
from a copyright owner to use a work, please see the document entitled,
"Getting Permission."
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