Peter Cannell <SIPAD002[_at_]SIVM.SI.EDU> asks:
>
>Regarding discussions on who holds copyright, what if you are a Federal
>employee at a non-Federal organization, a strange situation that we have
>here at Smithsonian Instiution. Are works by Federal employees in public
>domain, does individual hold copyright, or instiution?
Absent a contract, I don't see how the copyright could belong to the institution. If the federal employee creates the work "as part of that person's official duties" (section 101), then the work is a work of the United States Government, and in the public domain because of section 105. If the work is prepared in a context that is beyond the scope of the federal employee's official duties, then the work might be copyrightable; if so, the individual should own the copyright. In that case, the individual should be legally able to execute a written assignment of that copyright to either the government or the institution.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.2.0 : Mon Mar 26 2007 - 00:35:11 GMT