Re: copyright and natural law?

Albert Henderson <noblestation[_at_]compuserve.com> wrote:
>
> On 14 Sep 1998, Mark Lemley <mlemley[_at_]mail.law.berkeley.edu> wrote:
> >
> > There is no question that corporations are incented by intellectual
> > property rights; but of course that's perfectly consistent with the
> > classic US economic incentive story, *not* with an inherent ownership
> > interest. I don't think you can make a plausible case that all the
> > situations denominated "works for hire" are really cases of the employer
> > being the author. In particular, commissioned works which the parties
> > agree to treat as "for hire" may involve no substantive intervention
> > or participation by the "author" chosen by the copyright Act.
>
> Yes, many contracts between author and publisher agree to call
> the work "for hire" even though the work may have been prepared
> and finished before the publisher ever saw it. This makes the
> statistics you saw inaccurate and unreliable. I also wonder
> about your source.
>

I understand it is common practice in some disciplines to find the source and review it before concluding that it is "inaccurate and unreliable."

But since you asked, you can start with the somewhat old but still comprehensive study conducted by the copyright office, and cited in a footnote in CCNV v. Reid.

While it is certainly true that calling something a work for hire does not make it so, it is also the case that a prior commissioned work which falls into the categories listed in section 101 of the copyright act is a work for hire if the parties agree that it is.

Mark Lemley
Visiting Professor, Boalt Hall School of Law University of California at Berkeley (fall 1998) mlemley[_at_]mail.law.berkeley.edu
Professor of Law
University of Texas School of Law
Of counsel, Fish & Richardson P.C.
mlemley[_at_]mail.law.utexas.edu Received on Thu Sep 17 1998 - 17:46:18 GMT