Copyright protection rewards authors for the creation of original works. Copyright is intended to protect the method of expressing ideas, and not the actual ideas themselves. “Works” are considered under the main headings of: literary works (novels/reports/newspapers), Dramatic works (dance/mime), musical works (lyrics that are sung) and artistic works (photographs/sculptures).
Copyright is an issue that people and/or businesses need to be concerned with as it comes into play in many different scenarios. For example if you are an author, musician or a business that hires others to create your website or take photographs for you then you need to be thinking about ensuring that you have a copyright agreement in place.
How can you protect your work?
Copyright protection comes into effect as soon as the piece of work is produced i.e. a book is written. There is not a specific requirement to put a copyright notice on the work for it to qualify for protection. However, from a practical point of view it is important to have a copyright notice on the work in question as it establishes that the work is protected, and who has the benefit of the copyright.
Who is the owner of copyright?
In standard situations the author of a piece of work is the owner of the copyright in it. The author is the person who physically created the piece of work, not the person who had the initial idea for the work.
However, if you are an employee and you complete a piece of work in your employment i.e. you write a report for your employer, then you do not own the copyright in the piece of work. Your employer is the owner of the works and retains the copyright in it.
It is important to note that if your business pays a contractor to complete a piece of work for you, i.e. you employ someone to design your website, unless you have a specific agreement that states who owns the copyright in the work then the contractor is considered to be the owner of it. This can cause numerous problems because if you wanted to upgrade the website then you would have to get the designer’s permission since he is the owner of it. If you pay a contractor to undertake work for your business then you must have a formal agreement in place regarding the copyright otherwise it could cost you a lot of money to resolve in the future.
You can have joint ownership of a piece of work. This is often where two or more people/businesses collaborate to create a piece of work. Joint ownership requires that the contribution between the owners is not distinct from one another. An issue that arises with joint ownership is that both of the owners can not grant rights over the piece of work i.e. by allowing a non owner to use the work, without the others permission. If you are going to collaborate with another to produce a piece of work then it is vital that you have a formal agreement in place setting out the future arrangements in regards to use of the works.
There have been several important cases involving disputes over copyright in relation to joint owners. The most notable being Hadley and others v. Kemp and another [1999] All ER (D) 450 where three of the band members of Spandau Ballet sued Gary Kemp for joint ownership of the lyrics that Gary Kemp had written. It was concluded that there was no joint ownership in place. However, to reach that decision all parties had to go through a lengthy and expensive court case.
For advice on copyright or other intellectual property rights contact Andrea Curtis on andrea.curtis@birkettlong.co.uk
