Joint Ownership of Copyright

Two questions:

#1 Joint Ownership of Copyright

     My society will be holding a technical meeting jointly with another, European-based, society. One of the agreements made, back when the meeting was being planned, was that both organizations would hold the copyright in a published book of the meeting abstracts. The language of the agreement is very general, and is a section of a larger document. It states that our organization is responsible for granting of permissions, as well as for the production, distribution, and sales. Are there any other issues we should be aware of as we move into the production of this book? Do we need a more formal agreement that goes into more detail?

#2 Referral

     Our society has been around for a long time and is due for an inventory and overhaul of our copyright policies and transfer of copyright agreements, especially since we are about to embark on on-line publishing. Do other societies on this list use attorneys to periodically review their documents and policies, or do you try to keep up with everything and make decisions in-house? If using lawyers, are there any referrals/recommendations out there on how to find a good lawyer/firm?

Thanks in advance!

-- 
Mary E. Yess
Publications Manager
The Electrochemical Society, Inc.
10 South Main Street
Pennington, NJ 08534-2896, USA
Tel: 1.609.737.1902
Fax: 1.609.737.2743
E-mail: publications[_at_]electrochem.org
http://www.electrochem.org