A clause in the employment contract, if properly drafted, can lawfully state that the employer will own the copyright on employee creations made at work. The employer is the first owner of copyright on the works created by an employee at work. In the UK there are no moral rights on works created by employees. When several authors are involved in the creation process, the copyright ownership on the overall work can differ according to the creation process. All authors are then entitled with the copyright on their own creation and an undivided copyright on the overall creation.
Any act concerning the exploitation of the overall work requires agreement by all the authors.
The authors have the right to exploit their creation separately, provided that it is distinguishable within the overall work and that this exploitation does not prejudice the latter s exploitation. The duration of the copyright on this kind of work is the lifetime of the last surviving author plus a 70 years period. All authors worked under the supervision of a coordinator in whose name the overall work is published and it is not possible to distinguish the creation of each author within the overall work. The coordinator is entitled with the copyright on the overall work. The coordinator can be a physical person, legal entity, organisation or company.