Re: assigning joint ownership rights

On 03/23/2000, Howard Zaharoff <hgz[_at_]mbbp.com> wrote:
>
> I could use some assistance in answering the following questions.
> Assume that A. B and C are joint authors of a work (in this case,
> a motion picture) and acknowledge that each owns an undivided 1/3
> interest in the copyright (which, I assume, means, at the least,
> that any money earned by any of them, after expenses, must be
> shared 1/3 with each of the other two).
>
> If owner A wants to share her 1/3 interest with X, an individual who
> worked on the project, can she simply transfer 50% of her 1/3 interest
> to X, or does she need the permission of her co-owners to do so? If
> A does properly assign to X 50% of her 1/3 interest, are the other
> co-owners obligated to share their profits with her alone, and she
> (only) obligated to share them 50/50 with X, or are the other two
> owners, upon notice, required to treat A and X each as owners of an
> undivided 1/6 interest?
>
> Does the answer change if, instead of being a joint author of the work,
> A obtained her 1/3 ownership interest by assignment from C, the original

I would like a little clarification on the hypothetical. How does A propose to transfer her interest to X? As a joint tenancy or tenancy in common? Also, is this a work under the 1909 or 1976 Act. When did/will the transfer take place? I assume that your hypothetical involves US law, but the outcome is likely to be different under the law of other jurisdictions.

In general, one joint owner may always transfer his/her interest in the work to a third party (in the US, at least), who steps into the shoes of the transferee. It does not seem to be much of a stretch to say that the transfer can be to more than one person, in fractional shares, even with a retention of part of the copyright. In your hypothetical, after the transfer, the shares are owned 1/6-A, 1/6-X, 1/3-B, 1/3-C, so there are 4 joint owners and each of them has the right to exploit (grant NONexclusive licenses) the entire work, subject to accounting to the other joint owners.

S. Martin Keleti
<keleti[_at_]manifesto.com> Received on Fri Mar 24 2000 - 19:23:22 GMT