No registration, or advance permission from the Copyright Office is required to use a copyright notice. A copyright notice is not required to obtain copyright protection, since protection is now automatic. However, the notice should be affixed to the work to inform the public that the work is the subject of copyright protection. The general rule is that a person who creates the work is the author of that work. The employer may be a firm, an organization or an individual.
Works made by employees within the scope of their employment are works made for hire.
Business owners should be especially careful about ownership issues when copyrightable works are created by independent contractors. Unless there is an appropriate agreement in place, the independent contractor will generally own the copyright, despite the fact that he or she was paid by the business to create the work. Duration of Copyright Protection For works created since 1978, copyright protection for an individual author lasts for the life of the author, plus 70 years.