Re: Re: Re: Copyright in X-ray works

Steven Jamar wrote:
> Because the creators of the works are natural persons -- and in
> civil(ized) countries, the person owns the copyright, not the employer.
>
> On Thursday, March 17, 2005, at 03:35 PM, Vance R. Koven wrote:
>
>
> PS: I'm not sure why Steve considers US work-for-hire doctrine
> "curious." In order for there to be work for hire, somebody has to be
> hired, no?

Actually, I think the curious thing about US WMFH doctrine is not that the employer owns the copyright, but that the employer is the author. The separate term of copyright for WMFH is a necessary consequence.

Here in the UK, the natural (and mortal) person, the employee, is the author, but if the work is created in the course of employment, then the employer is the first owner - but the term is still calculated from the author's death.

In countries where copyright is the inalienable right of the author, employers normally get a pretty strong set of rights by way of licence from employed authors.

> --
>
> Prof. Steven D. Jamar vox: 202-806-8017
> Howard University School of Law fax: 202-806-8428
> 2900 Van Ness Street NW _mailto:sjamar[_at_]law.howard.edu_
> Washington, DC 20008 _http://www.law.howard.edu/faculty/pages/jamar_
>
> "For all men of good will May 17, 1954, came as a joyous daybreak to end
> the long night of enforced segregation. . . . It served to transform the
> fatigue of despair into the buoyancy of hope."
>
> Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1960 on Brown v. Board of Education
>
>
>

-- 
Edward Barrow
Copyright Consultant
edward[_at_]copyweb.co.uk
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