Question on liability for falsely asserting copyright pro

Perhaps I am missing something here but when did calling something a duck make it a duck? In the US initial copyright authorship and ownership happen by operation of law. This is how the author of a work-made-for-hire can actually be the employer/commissioner rather than the individual who does the original fixing. What an owner chooses to do with his/her ownership after that is up to him/her/them.

If that's the case then our author is the legal author/owner if the work did not qualify as a work-made-for-hire way back then, regardless of whether the publisher registered it as the author's (as they were obligated to do per contract) or as their own. Of course a prospective publisher, being of the conservative lot we know the industry to be, is going to want some reassurance that the author is the legal author/owner in contradiction of the US registration, but that can be addressed contractually with an indemnification if nothing else. And in fact standard publication agreements routinely have such a third-party infringement indemnification in them so this shouldn't be tough.

This, of course, does not answer the question of liability for falsely asserting ownership, but perhaps makes it easier for the author to get there.

Jan Carmikle Dwyer
Intellectual Property Officer
Technology Transfer Services/TIA/OVCR
University of California, Davis
1850 Research Park Dr Suite 100
Davis CA 95616-6134
Voice: 530-297-4493
Fax: 530-758-3276
Email: jcdwyer[_at_]ucdavis.edu

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