Re: SCIENCE TODAY?

On Tue, Mar 2, 1999, Joe Lane <joelane[_at_]nm.net> wrote:

>

Not a good example, since there is, by statute, no copyright in works of the US Government.

However, move the example to the private sector, and the questions still stands: If someone writes an annual report for her company, should the company get the credit for writing it?

Under the law, if an employee of a company, in the scope of her duties as an employee, creates a copyrightable work, then the company owns the copyright in that work. That's what the employee was hired and paid to do; so why shouldn't the company become the owner of the work? (Caution here, though: if the author of the work was a contractor, not an employee, that's still what he was hired and paid to do, but the company doesn't automatically become the owner of the copyright; a signed writing is necessary to confirm the transfer of ownership from the author to the company.)

But your question was, Should the boss get the credit for writing it? Credit isn't the same as copyright, and it is quite possible that the author, even if a fulltime employee working within the scope of her employment, will still be given a byline, recognition, credit, maybe even a handsome bonus. The one thing she won't get is ownership of the copyright. That's the way it is under US copyright law anyway.

Bob Cumbow
cumbr[_at_]perkinscoie.com
206-583-8566 Received on Wed Mar 03 1999 - 17:14:05 GMT