Source: http://03475dd.netsolhost.com/WordPress/category/copyright-ownership/
Timestamp: 2013-05-18 22:43:23
Document Index: 277820648

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 102', '§ 106', '§201', '§ 201', '§ 512', '§ 1201', '§512', '§ 512', '§ 103', '§101']

Copyright ownership Archives - Legal Corner for Authors Home
Print	April 10th, 2013 | Tags: Estates, Exclusive / Nonexclusive, Statutory rights, Termination of exclusive license | Category: Copyright ownership, Exclusive rights, Infringement, Publishing, Publishing contract, Statutory termination of license | Leave a comment Creator’s Right to Compensation for Misappropriated Concept	A writer’s income generally comes from royalties and licensing revenues for works which are protected by copyright. Section 102(a) of the U.S. Copyright Act states that “original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression” are protected by copyright. By definition in Section 102(b) ideas and concepts do not have copyright protection. A writing known in the entertainment industry as a “series treatment” which embodies an idea developed for a television series is protected in part and unprotected in part. If there is no statutory copyright protection for “thought creations” the creator’s right to compensation must come from contract. Binding a party to whom an idea or concept has been disclosed does not necessarily require a written contract. An implied or quasi-contract may be sufficient. Forest Park Pictures and others v. Universal Television Network, Inc. reached the Second Circuit Court of Appeals (which sits in New York) after a judgment dismissing the complaint. The case concerned the obligation of USA Network to pay for using a concept it received from the plaintiffs/creators for its television series. There was no written contract but plaintiffs alleged an implied promise to pay reasonable compensation if the concept was used (a quasi-contract). According to Forest Park Pictures, USA Network misappropriated its idea by producing its own television series based on the same concept.
Print	November 16th, 2012 | Tags: Implied-in-fact, Implied-in-fact contract, Misappropriation | Category: Copyright, Copyright ownership, Infringement, Publishing | One comment Writers Be-Wary: Distribution and Control of Creative Material	Originally published as a Guest Blog on Writer Beware® September 7, 2012
Authors create the content blog aggregators need for their web collections. Each gains in different ways. For the aggregator, the greater the variety of material and the steadier the receipt of content the more valuable the aggregated website. Because aggregating content is a business not a charitable operation, it is natural that aggregator agreements to publish content will primarily reflect the aggregator’s interests. Benefits to authors come in the form of readership and (possibly) recognition which may be a fair exchange even the author is un- or minimally compensated for her work. However, particularly productive authors will wish to retain control over their contributions and may find aggregators’ “Terms of Use” unaccommodating. It is a fair question, What does an author give up in exchange for granting a license for the privilege of having her content aggregated with others and accessible to the searching public?
The consideration in exchange for a license should begin with an appreciation for copyright. This is so because all agreements between publishers and authors start with a grant of rights. The Copyright Act states that “Copyright protection subsists … in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression” (§ 102). Content submitted for aggregation is a tangible medium of expression, but remedies for infringement of content come through registration. There is no immediate remedy for unregistered content however egregious the taking. Neither the granting of rights nor the publication of content protects an author against infringement. Copyright registration is not expensive but it may be (or may be thought to be) uneconomical.
The questions concerning aggregator “Terms of Use” are not simply academic. They can affect an author’s future. Active content creators produce volumes of original material which can be collected and reworked into other formats. It is one thing to confer limited rights of publication and distribution of content on a nonexclusive basis and another to lose control of other statutory rights. One of the exclusive rights an author has under the Copyright Act is the right “to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work” (§ 106(2)). Exclusive licenses are not typical in aggregator agreements, but there is a form of nonexclusive license that has some worrying features. It is prudent before granting rights for the author to carefully examine the terms under which the aggregator accept content in exchange for publication. Not all terms are equally beneficial to the author. There are different monetizing models, all of which have the ultimate purpose of creating revenue for the aggregator. Some aggregators create libraries of material which are accessed for payment. Other aggregators generate revenue from the advertising on their websites. Some models may share the revenue with authors.
The potential problems are illustrated by several examples. In drawing attention to terms in the following agreements we are not suggesting any deliberate attempt to benefit at the author’s expense, but we are pointing out that the agreements are essentially on a “take it or leave it” basis, which is always a sign for caution.
1. The ODP (Open Directory Project) is a comprehensive directory of Web resources. In exchange for ODP’s agreement to include an author’s work the author agrees:
To grant AOL LLC. Corporation a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use, publish, copy, edit, modify, or create derivative works from my submission.
The catch is “edit, modify or create derivative works from my submission.” Although the ODP license is nonexclusive the author grants AOL extensive rights to the blog content. The author can terminate the license but AOL owns any derivative work it creates, but the derivative works created from the author’s submission are owned by the aggregator “royalty free.”
2. BLOGLINES is an aggregator of syndicated news feeds operated by WYBS.
The Bloglines Terms of Service assert that “WYBS does not claim ownership of the Content you place on your Private Page or Public Page,” but “[b]y uploading, submitting or otherwise disclosing or distributing content of any kind on the WYBS website or otherwise through the Bloglines Service, you” – here comes the kicker –
[You] Grant to WYBS, its affiliates and their assignees the perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, royalty-free right to use, reproduce, display, perform, adapt, modify, distribute, make derivative works of and otherwise exploit such content in any form for the purpose of providing the Bloglines Service, including without limitation, any concepts, ideas or know-how embodied therein….
Even though Bloglines disclaims ownership of blog content, the author has lost control of her work. She has granted WYBS the right to “exploit such content in any for” and in any way it chooses to on a “perpetual [and] irrevocable” basis that includes the right “without limitation … to exploit such content … an any concepts, ideas or know-how embodied therein.” The “non-exclusive” is meaningful only to the extent that the author has the means to exploit the work in the same fashion as the aggregator.
Curata’s Terms of Use state that:
“By submitting, posting or displaying Content you give us an irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Website. You represent and warrant to us that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the above license. You agree that you are solely responsible for (and that we have no responsibility to you or to any third party for) any Content that you create, transmit or display or permit to be created, transmitted or displayed while using the System and for the consequences of such actions (including any loss or damage which we may suffer) by doing so.”
While Curata does not use the term “derivative” the author has all but granted it in the terms “adapt, modify … publicly perform [and] publicly display” the substance of the work.
In each of these examples, the author has licensed aggegator the right to exploit her work. It is not as though she does not have the same rights or is inhibited in licensing to others but the exploiting by aggregators is without approval, and without approval she has no control. Authors should assess the benefits, consider what they are prepared to give up in exchange for publication of their works to audiences larger than they themselves can attract and make their decisions with knowledge that they lose control of many of their copyright rights. Productive authors should be particularly careful because for them original content can be collected or packaged in different formats or reworked into books for traditional or e-publishers.
Print	September 14th, 2012 | Tags: Aggregators, Blogs, Granting and retaining rights | Category: Copyright, Copyright ownership, Derivative rights, Granting / Retaining rights, Non-exclusive rights | Leave a comment List, Net, Agency and Wholesale: How Authors Get Paid	Whether money is the motive for writing – “[n]o man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money” (Samuel Johnson) – or only one of the rewards for those lonely hours of composition, how does the author get paid? Before she reaches the “royalties” clause in her publishing contract she has to negotiate the “grant of rights”. What is she giving up for what she is getting? In exchange for granting rights that may extend beyond the grave, she earns royalties Royalties were not an established convention in Samuel Johnson’s writing lifetime. What is the current practice? Royalties for trade books are typically based on list or catalog price, although some publishers pay on net receipts and net receipts are offered by traditional publishers for e-books. List price is better for the author. If royalties are based on net, it is crucial for the deducted expenses to be clearly defined. Thus, if the list price of a hardcover book is $36. and royalties (before escalations) are 10% the author’s account will be credited $3.60 per sale. Trade paperback and mass market paperbacks are similarly treated. It matters little to the author that the publisher discounts her books to a retailer because the discount does not affect royalties.
Print	April 10th, 2012 | Tags: Advance against royalties, Agency vs. Wholesale, Publishing contracts, Royalties | Category: Advance, Copyright ownership, Publishing contract, Royalties, Standard terms | Leave a comment Ownership of Work Included in a Compilation	To have a work included in a compilation is a goal eagerly sought after by authors. It is a distinction for a story or article to appear in an anthology. What should the author be alert to? The question comes up in discussing digital aggregation of compilations in the context of authors’ rights under the Copyright Act. The answer is found in sections 103 and 201(c) of the Copyright Act as construed in decisions from the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and the Supreme Court.
Compilers and authors have complementary rights. Section 103 provides in pertinent part
The copyright in a compilation … extends only to the material contributed by the author of such work, as distinguished from the preexisting material employed in the work, and does not imply any exclusive right in the preexisting material. (Emphasis added)
Authors typically grant exclusive first publication rights to the compiler but non-exclusive rights thereafter. A non-exclusive right is not a transfer of rights under the Copyright Act. A “compilation” is defined in Section 101 as “a work formed by the collection and assembling of preexisting materials.” It includes “collective works” which are works “in which a number of contributions, constituting separate and independent works in themselves, are assembled into a collective whole.”
Section 201(c) of the Copyright Act is composed of two sentences. The first concerns the author; the second the compiler. The first provides: “Copyright in each separate contribution to a collective work is distinct from copyright in the collective work as a whole, and vests initially in the author of the contribution.” The second sentence defines the compiler’s rights:
In the absence of an express transfer of the copyright or of any rights under it, the owner of copyright in the collective work is presumed to have acquired only the privilege of reproducing and distributing the contribution as part of that particular collective work, any revision of that collective work, and any later collective work in the same series. (Emphasis added)
Legally, author and compiler have separate rights under the Copyright Act, but the compiler’s “privilege of reproducing and distributing the contribution” after its initial appearance is limited.
Imagine that an author has contributed a story to a compilation which is one of a series, for example a quarterly anthology of short stories. The compiler wishes to have the entire series made available to future readers by an electronic database provider. Essentially two scenarios can be envisioned. In the first, the compiler licenses the series of compilations (the archives) to a third-party who aggregates the material in electronic and CD-ROM databases without the author’s permission. The compiler assumes the “privilege” to license the individual stories in the compilation. In the second scenario, the compiler (also without permission) either creates or licenses the compilations for distribution in a format that duplicates the compilations page for page.
The first scenario was the subject of a case decided in favor of authors, Tasini v. New York Times, 206 F.3d 161 (2nd Cir. 1999), affirmed by the Supreme Court, 533 U.S. 483 (2001). The second was decided in favor of the compiler, Faulkner v. National Geographic Enterprises Inc., 409 F.3d 26 (2nd Cir. 2005). Authors win in the first case because section 201(c) does not permit the author of a collective work (the compiler) to license an individual contribution without the author’s agreement to “express[ly] transfer … [her] copyright.” The compiler wins when the medium of reproduction preserves the original format.
The author of an individual contribution to a collective work owns the copyright to that contribution. Any unauthorized reproduction and distribution generally infringes the copyright unless such use is specifically protected by the Act. There are two sides to this principle: Tasini illustrates one; Faulkner the other. In Tasini, individual contributors’ works were licensed by the compiler for inclusion in electronic databases. The presumption under section 201(c) is that the author of a short story (or article, as in Tasini) “gives the publisher the author’s permission to include the article in a collective work … [as well as] a non-assignable, non-exclusive privilege to use the article as identified in the statute.” The Court held that section 201(c) does not permit compilers (or, as in Tasini, publishers”) to license copyrighted works where they “may be retrieved individually or in combination with other pieces originally published in different editions of the periodical or in different periodicals.”
Putting its decision in context with Tasini, the Court in Faulkner emphasized the different factual circumstances between the two cases. “Crucial to our decision” (in Tasini) “was the fact that each article had to be retrieved individually from the particular database and made ‘available without any material from the rest of the periodical in which it first appeared’.” The Supreme Court held that “publishers are not sheltered by §201(c) because
the databases reproduce and distribute articles standing alone and not in context, not “as part of that particular collective work to which the author contributed, “as part of … any revision thereof, or “as part of … any later collective work in the same series.”
In contrast National Geographic did reproduce the back issues of the magazine “as part of the collective work to which the author contributed or as part of any ‘revision’ thereof’.” National Geographic is entitled to the § 201(c) “privilege” because it converted the “intact periodicals (or revisions of periodicals) from one medium to another.” The Court noted that
Each issue of the magazine was scanned two pages at a time into a computer system. As a result, the [complete digital collection] user sees exactly what he or she would see if viewing an open page of the paper version, including the fold of the magazine.
Having complete digital collections available for the reading public is valuable – individual works would otherwise be lost in the accumulation of newer works. However, to scan separate individual works into a database must be expressly agreed upon by each author to avoid exposure to liability for copyright infringement. A digital database should benefit authors as well as readers and compilers.
Print	March 29th, 2012 | Tags: Collective work (compilation), Publishing contracts | Category: Compilation, Copyright Act, Copyright ownership, Permissions, Publishing contract | Leave a comment Self Help: What is a Take Down Notice and How Does it Work?	The principal legal mechanisms for protecting copyright of works recopied on the Internet without permission and in violation of an author’s copyright is laid out in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The major aggregators of content have developed policies and take down forms in compliance with the DMCA. If a copyright owner finds unlawful copying of her material she can request the Googles of the world to take it down. Google and the other aggregators have developed copyright-infringement notification policies for both DRM free (digital rights management) and digitally accessible works with embedded copyright protection systems. This short note only deals with DRM free materials, § 512 of the Copyright Act. Materials embedded with copyright protection systems are covered in § 1201 et seq. of the Act.
The Google notification form asks a series of questions that match the statutory list in §512 (c)(3)(A) including whether the complained about material is a copyright infringement. The series ends with this notice:
IMPORTANT: If you knowingly misrepresent that material or activity is infringing, you may be subject to liability for damages. Accordingly, if you are not sure whether material available online infringes your copyright, we suggest that you first contact a lawyer. Please also note that your message to us may be forwarded to the party who filed the original copyright complaint.
This intimidating coda is based on § 512(f) of the Copyright Act. It provides:
Any person who knowingly materially misrepresents under this section —
shall be liable for any damages, including costs and attorneys’[] fees, incurred by the alleged infringer, by any copyright owner or copyright owner’s authorized licensee, or by a service provider, who is injured by such misrepresentation, as the result of the service provider relying upon such misrepresentation in removing or disabling access to the material or activity claimed to be infringing, or in replacing the removed material or ceasing to disable access to it.
There is not a great deal of case-law interpreting this provision of DMCA, but federal courts that have addressed the provision have offered additional gloss on the meaning of the terms “knowing” and “material misrepresentation.” “Knowingly” has been interpreted to mean ‘that a party actually knew, should have known if it acted with reasonable care or diligence, or would have had no substantial doubt had it been acting in good faith, that it was making misrepresentations.” Online Policy Grp. v. Diebold, Inc., 337 F.Supp.2d 1195, 1204 (N.D.Cal. 2004). And “[a] material misrepresentation is one that ‘affected [the infringer or service provider's] response to a DMCA letter’.” Capitol Records, Inc. v. MP3tunes, LLC, 611 F.Supp.2d 342, 346 (S.D.N.Y. 2009) (quoting Online Policy Grp.,337 F.Supp.2d at 1204).
Let us get our bearing. Copyright protects “original work[s] of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression,” regardless of whether the work has been registered. As a general rule, infringement is not actionable until the author has a certificate in hand (although this may not be true for all Circuits). That is, the author cannot commence or maintain an action in federal court until the work is registered. But the DMCA is a self-help procedure. Only if the service provider refuses to take down the infringing (or alleged infringing copy) is the author authorized to proceed further with injunctive and legal relief. There are questions that courts have not yet reached in commencing an action for infringement of unregistered material. The Copyright Office provides some information on its website.
Print	February 15th, 2012 | Tags: Aggregating content, Copyright infringement, Digital Rights Management, DMCA, Self help | Category: Copyright Act, Copyright ownership, Infringement, Permissions | Leave a comment Copyright Protection of Works Included in Compilations and Collections	Copyright law protects authors who have registered their works. They are generally well attuned to copyright for their separately standing works, but less so when it comes to shorter works accepted for publication in compilations such as collections and anthologies. Section 103 (a) of the Copyright Act states that “[t]he subject matter of copyright … includes compilations.” A “compilation” is a collection of items in which a number of separate and independent contributions are collected into an organic whole. However, § 103(b) provides that the
Print	February 8th, 2012 | Tags: Author, Compilation, Copyright registration, Copyright symbol ©, Derivative rights | Category: Collective work, Compilation, Copyright Act, Copyright ownership, Exclusive rights, Non-exclusive rights, Publishing | Leave a comment Falling Into and Out of the Public Domain	Once in the public domain content (which includes characters) is free; to copy or create derivative works. P.D. James’ Death Comes to Pemberley and a continuing stream of novels featuring Sherlock Holmes are recent examples. Until works fall into the public domain content and characters are not free. They are copyright protected. Authors (defined in the broadest sense under the Copyright Act) are entitled to payment.
Print	February 1st, 2012 | Tags: Copyrfight clause, Public domain, U.S. Constitution | Category: Copyright, Copyright ownership, Exclusive rights, Public domain | Leave a comment Ownership of Copyright for Joint Works	The Copyright Act §101 defines a “joint work” as “work prepared by two or more authors with the intention that their contributions be merged into inseparable or interdependent parts of the unitary whole.” Embedded here are several difficult concepts. “Intention” from whose perspective? And, what contributions qualify for joint authorship? The questions are important because “authors of a joint work are co-owners of copyright in the work” and “[a] joint owner of a copyright … cannot be liable to a co-owner for copyright infringement because a copyright owner cannot infringe his own copyright.” Strauss v. Hearst Corp., No. 85 Civ. 10017, 1988 WL 18932, at 5 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 19, 1988). “Intention” is not presumed by a party declaring a right, but an inference drawn from the factual circumstances in each individual case.
Print	January 25th, 2012 | Tags: Contributions to work, Copyright ownership, Joint works | Category: Collaboration, Copyright, Copyright ownership, Joint works | One comment Podcasts	We've added Podcasts. Scroll down for the menu.