Re: 50/50 book ownership dispute

Taking your facts to be correct as stated and that you are true co-authors and not individual contributors of individual parts of the book (not always an easy question), co-authors are joint owners of the whole work (Section 201). Each co-owner can independently decide how he or she will exploit his or her rights in the copyrighted work, but the co-owner must account to (share the profits with) the other co-owner.

This should be contrasted with co-inventors where each co-inventor is a co-owner of the whole work (like a copyright) and can independently exploit the whole invention (similar to copyright), but a coinventor does NOT have to account to the other co-inventor.

• John

>
> From: "David Eckardt" <patches[_at_]sopris.net>
> Date: 2006/03/21 Tue AM 11:45:01 EST
> To: "CNI-COPYRIGHT -- Copyright & Intellectual Property"
> <CNI-COPYRIGHT[_at_]cni.org>
> Subject: [CNI-(C)] 50/50 book ownership dispute
>
> I am 50% owner of a copyrighted book. My partner and I wrote, published, and distribute the book. Recently, that book sold out of its first printing. I wish to reprint, my partner does not. Through long negotiations, I have not been able to convince him of the value of a reprint. The book's material is somewhat time-sensitive and he thinks it is dated. It had to be reprinted to be available for sale this summer to be of value. Thinking further arguement futile, without telling him, I decided to reprint using my own money. Later, I told him what I did, but still offered him partnership in the profits of the book after it returned me my investment in the reprint. He declined all reasonable offers and threatens to sue over my "unlawful" pirating of his copyrighted property. He also claims that reprinting the book without his permission was illegal. What would be anybodies take on this?
>
>
Received on Wed Mar 22 2006 - 01:00:01 GMT