Re: Re: Owner as author?

> At 4:55 PM -0400 4/12/05, Heather Vargas wrote:
>
> Who is more logically an "agent" of an entity than its owner?

An employee, for one. Or anyone hired to do the entity's business.

If the owner is the CEO, Chair of the Board of Directors, and President, then the employee and agency status is quite clear. But mere ownership does not make any of those things necessarily the case. The owner may not even be on the board of directors.

Secondly, being an agent is not sufficient for finding ownership of the copyright. The U.S. law requires that the person be an employee and that the work be done within the scope of the employment, or else it requires that the person be a non-employee contractee within one of the 9 magic categories for work for hire.

We don't have enough facts to unravel who made the software at what time as part of what business or the terms under which the person joined the corporation or his responsibilities, etc.

Steve

-- 
Prof. Steven D. Jamar                               vox:  202-806-8017
Howard University School of Law                     fax:  202-806-8567
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