On Thu, 23 Jul 1998, Thomas Workman <tworkman[_at_]erols.com> wrote:
>
> Brigid S. Delaney <wiredheart[_at_]hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I still can't imagine why anyone would copyright another's work.
>
> When you work for a company, and you write something that relates to
> your job description, then that work is authored by your company, and
> not you. The Copyright law says that is the case. These works are
> called a "work for hire". Often times, the person who wrote down the
> words will quit, and then will want to exploit the work that they wrote.
> Often times, they will write the work "at home, on my own time", and
> think that the work is theirs. Often, that work belongs to the
> company, and not to the person who wrote down the words, even if
> they did it at home, on their own time. Both the company, and the
> ex-employee will register the work. The copyright office will register
> the same work twice. This is how most legal battles begin when the
> "work for hire" concept is at the core of the legal dispute. These
> happen a lot.
>
> This is not a case of someone who finds a work and then steals it
> (although I have a case right now where a photographer made a poster
> with a poem on it, and the poem was written by my client -- the
> photographer copyrighted the poster, poem and all). The work for hire
> issue is a struggle over who owns the work produced by an employee,
> and two registrations of the same work almost always occur.
Yes I understand this. I realize I was focusing on the individual free-lance writer who (generally) does not do work-for-hire.
> > If you're infringing the works of an unknown writer - you'd have
> > little to gain unless you see a particular work as being financially
> > beneficial in the future.
>
> To the contrary, if you can get away with it, because the person does
> not have the money or ability to fight for their rights, then the thief
> wins. If you didn't register your work, you have to prove damages.
> A Copyright case can be expensive, and not knowing how much you may
> recover is a deterrent to bringing suit. If you registered the
> copyright, then an attorney is much more likely to get involved,
> because attorney's fees are awarded routinely in such cases (if you
> win, of course).
Which is a very good case for registering your work in the copyright office. I know of several published writers who rarely bother to do so. I try and tell them it is worthwhile but... since the law says a work is copyright when it is "fixed", they count on that.
BTW, the incident that began my posting here has been resolved - to a degree. I've been too busy to participate at that conference, but I have been told the main host has removed the infringed work after my last request this past Sunday.
I have been thanked by the gentlemen who created the work for my passionate determination in seeing this resolved. I think the thanks go also to this group because passion for one's "rights" may intrigue on-lookers but without solid knowledge to support it - it is rather useless. Thanks for the knowledge.
Brigid
Brigid S. Delaney
<wiredheart[_at_]hotmail.com>
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