In Australian and Singapore Copyright Law*

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

In Australian and Singapore Copyright Law* 792 Singapore Academy of Law Journal (2012) 24 SAcLJ REFLECTIONS ON AUTHORSHIP AND THE MEANING OF A “WORK” IN AUSTRALIAN AND SINGAPORE COPYRIGHT LAW* While other articles in this special issue discuss changing standards of originality in copyright law, this article deals with a number of further issues that are closely related, and which have great practical implications in both the traditional print and online environments. It begins with a consideration of the concept of authorship and the meaning of a “work”, and how these matters affect one’s understanding of the standard that is to be applied when considering the question of copyright subsistence. National and international approaches are considered, particularly with reference to the provisions of the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works and recent Australian decisions in which the link between authors and their works has been stressed. The following issues are then discussed: whether there is a quantum requirement for the purposes of determining that something is a “work” in the first place; the activities that are to be included within the scope of the term “authorship”; whether there are meaningful boundaries to be drawn between different species of works, in particular, literary and artistic works; the degree to which human involvement is necessary for the purposes of showing that a work is one of authorship; and the problems of multiple authors, particularly in the online environment. Sam RICKETSON Professor of Law, Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne, Australia. I. Introduction 1 Several of the articles in this special issue deal with, in different ways, the meaning of “originality” in copyright law and the way in which * This article has its origins in several seminars that were given by the author, together with Jane Ginsburg of Columbia Law School, at the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford in October 2012. It was developed further in a more extended lecture conducted by the author at the University of Amsterdam on 6 July 2011, and was refined yet further in a lecture given at the Centre for Transnational Legal Studies in London on 17 March 2012. © 2012 contributor(s) and Singapore Academy of Law. No part of this document may be reproduced without permission from the copyright holders. Reflections on Authorship and the Meaning of a (2012) 24 SAcLJ “Work” in Australian and Singapore Copyright Law 793 this concept appears to be bringing US, Australian and Singapore laws to something closer to the civil law concept of “intellectual creation”. It is not the purpose of the present article to canvass this territory again in any detail.1 Rather, the intention is to investigate some further issues that are closely related, if not fundamental to, any proper consideration of standards of originality, and which have great practical implications in both the traditional print and online environments: the concept of authorship and the meaning of a “work”, and how these matters play into the standard that we should apply when considering the question of copyright subsistence. Various consequential issues then arise for consideration, including the following: whether there is a quantum requirement for the purposes of determining that something is a “work” in the first place; what activities are to be included within the scope of the term “authorship”; whether there are meaningful boundaries to be drawn between different species of works, in particular, literary and artistic works; the degree to which human involvement is necessary for the purposes of showing that a work is one of authorship; and the problems of multiple authors, particularly in the online environment. 2 This article begins, then, by considering what is meant by the terms “author” and “work”. II. The starting point – National laws 3 In Australian and Singapore national laws, the link between works and authorship (and originality) is clearly articulated. Thus, both the Australian and Singapore Copyright Acts distinguish between “original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works” (protected under Part III) and “subject-matter other than works” (Part IV).2 Some of these terms are then defined further in inclusive terms (in the case of literary works, specifically dealing with status of computer programs and compilations, as well as in the case of dramatic works, so as to apply to works of choreography and mime), exhaustive terms (in the case of artistic works) or not at all (in the case of musical works).3 However, the link between the “work” and the “author” is a prerequisite for protection under both Acts, a condition that is stated explicitly in the case of 1 See further Sam Ricketson, “Common Law Approaches to the Requirement of Originality” in The Common Law of Intellectual Property: Essays in Honour of Prof David Vaver (Lionel Bently, Catherine W Ng & Giuseppina D’Agostino eds) (Hart Publishing, 2010) at pp 221–253. 2 Copyright Act 1968 (Act No 63 of 1968) (Cth) (Aust); Copyright Act 1987 (Act 2 of 1987). 3 See generally the definitions of these terms that appear in s 10(1) of the Copyright Act 1968 (Act No 63 of 1968) (Cth) (Aust) and s 7 of the Copyright Act 1987 (Act 2 of 1987). © 2012 contributor(s) and Singapore Academy of Law. No part of this document may be reproduced without permission from the copyright holders. 794 Singapore Academy of Law Journal (2012) 24 SAcLJ unpublished works4 while being implicit for published works, in that these must be “original” and therefore the product of an act of authorship.5 In this regard, the statement of Isaacs J in an early Australian case arising under the Copyright Act 1911,6 where the same language was used, remains apposite:7 [I]n copyright law the two expressions ‘author’ and ‘original work’ have always been correlative; the one connotes the other. 4 Nonetheless, neither the Australian nor Singapore Copyright Acts provides any guidance as to the meaning of “author” or what authorial attributes must be present, with the limited exception that, in the case of photographs, the reference to “author” means the “person who took the photograph”.8 While strictly confined in its application, this definition at least has some utility when compared with the more general definition of “author” that now appears in UK legislation, to the effect that “author”, in relation to a work, means “the person who creates it”.9 It might be said that the latter definition appears to beg the question as to what is meant by “creates”; on the other hand, it provides courts with some useful flexibility in determining just what constitutes authorship in any given case, as well as underlining that authorship is concerned with the act of making (creating) a work or bringing it into existence. In the absence of such a definition, Australian and Singapore courts may have even greater room for manoeuvre in deciding new cases of claimed authorship as they arise, but the lack of statutory guidance means that this is a journey through uncharted waters with no markers of where authorship fades into non-authorship (and no protection). This, in turn, invites a number of further inquiries: (a) What guidance is there to be found in the international obligations that apply to Australia and Singapore with respect to the protection of works of authorship? The obvious point of reference here is the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (“Berne Convention”) 1886, as revised, and as incorporated in our respective World Trade Organization commitments under the annexed Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (“TRIPS Agreement”). As will be seen below, the Berne Convention 4 Copyright Act 1968 (Act No 63 of 1968) (Cth) (Aust) s 32(1); Copyright Act 1987 (Act 2 of 1987) s 27(1). 5 Copyright Act 1968 (Act No 63 of 1968) (Cth) (Aust) s 32(2); Copyright Act 1987 (Act 2 of 1987) s 27(2). 6 c 46 (UK); this Imperial Act was applied in Australia by the Copyright Act 1912 (Cth) (Aust). 7 Sands and McDougall Pty Ltd v Robinson (1917) 23 CLR 49, per Isaacs J. 8 Copyright Act 1968 (Act No 63 of 1968) (Cth) (Aust) s 10(1) and Copyright Act 1987 (Act 2 of 1987) s 7. 9 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (c 48) (UK) s 9(1). © 2012 contributor(s) and Singapore Academy of Law. No part of this document may be reproduced without permission from the copyright holders. Reflections on Authorship and the Meaning of a (2012) 24 SAcLJ “Work” in Australian and Singapore Copyright Law 795 provides some boundaries, but is quite open-ended on a number of other areas; furthermore, while it supplies some outer limits, it says relatively little as to what falls within those limits. (b) Given the space for national solutions within these international parameters, how have the Australian and Singapore courts and legislators approached these questions? The central issue here, of course, is the threshold standard of originality that is to be applied in order to gain protection, and which has primarily been a matter for judicial consideration at the national level. (c) What further issues remain unresolved or, perhaps, as yet untested? 5 The first of these questions has been addressed at some length by the present author elsewhere,10 and therefore needs only to be touched on lightly here. The second question, too, has been the subject of detailed consideration by several of the other contributors to this special issue and it will therefore not be covered here again, other than to make some more general observations touching on recent developments in Australia. The third question, however, gives rise to a series of further intriguing inquiries that will form the major part of this contribution, and which also provides some of the larger “back story” that underlies discussion of standards of originality.
Recommended publications
  • The Integration of Copyright and Employment Law
    Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal Volume 20 Volume XX Number 1 Volume XX Book 1 Article 2 2009 Who Owns Bratz? The Integration of Copyright and Employment Law Michael D. Birnhack Tel-Aviv University Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/iplj Part of the Entertainment, Arts, and Sports Law Commons, and the Intellectual Property Law Commons Recommended Citation Michael D. Birnhack, Who Owns Bratz? The Integration of Copyright and Employment Law, 20 Fordham Intell. Prop. Media & Ent. L.J. 95 (2009). Available at: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/iplj/vol20/iss1/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by FLASH: The Fordham Law Archive of Scholarship and History. It has been accepted for inclusion in Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal by an authorized editor of FLASH: The Fordham Law Archive of Scholarship and History. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Who Owns Bratz? The Integration of Copyright and Employment Law Cover Page Footnote Thanks to Maurizio Borghi, Hanoch Dagan, Guy Davidov, Niva Elkin-Koren, Edo Eshet, Orit Fischman Afori, Oren Gazal-Ayal, Assaf Jacob, Ariel Katz, Wen Li, Orly Lobel, Guy Mundlak, Karl-Nikolaus Peifer, Guy Pessach, Alessandra Rossi, and participants at the Third Workshop on the Law and Economics of Intellectual Property at Queen Mary University of London (July 2007), the annual congress of the Society for Economic Research on Copyright Issues (SERCI) in Berlin (July 2007), the 4-Sided Workshop on Law & Economics (Rome, 2009) and the 9th Intellectual Property Scholars Conference at Cardozo Law School (August 2009), especially Pamela Samuelson and Rebecca Tushnet, for helpful comments and to Dorit Garfunkel, Nir Servatka and Barak Tevet for able research assistance.
    [Show full text]
  • Work for Hire: Revision on the Horizon
    *21 Copyright 1989 by the PTC Research Foundation of the Franklin Pierce Law Center IDEA: The Journal of Law and Technology 1989 WORK FOR HIRE: REVISION ON THE HORIZON Michael Carter Smith [n.a] INTRODUCTION The Copyright Act of 1976 ('76 Act) [n.1] became effective a decade ago. [n.2] The '76 Act contained new and controversial "work for hire" provisions. [n.3] As thousands of employment agreements involve work for hire, [n.4] the ramifications of this perplexing doctrine are worthy of consideration. The work for hire provisions of the '76 Act [n.5] represent a deliberate attempt by Congress to apportion copyright entitlements in such a way as to appease both ''employers/buyers" and "employees/sellers" of copyrightable works. [n.6] The compromise embodied in the doctrine has proven to be highly problematic: "employers/buyers," "employees/sellers" and the courts have been vexed by the doctrine's vague language. [n.7] The confusion generated by the work for hire provisions of the '76 Act has gone largely unheeded by Congress. However, Senator Cochran (R-Miss.), the Ralph Nader of the work for hire doctrine, has proposed numerous work for hire amendments. [n.8] Despite the support of the 100,000 member *22 Copyright Justice Coalition, Mr. Cochran's proposed amendments have failed to garner allies in the Senate. Whatever the reason for his lack of success, the contradictory judicial interpretations of the doctrine necessitate a congressional remedy. In this paper I will attempt to provoke congressional reconsideration of the work for hire doctrine. First, I will present the doctrine and its underlying policy considerations.
    [Show full text]
  • Circular 1: Copyright Basics
    w 1 Copyright Basics What Is Copyright? Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States (title 17, U. S. Code) to the authors of “original works of authorship,” including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. This protection is available to both published and unpublished works. Section 106 of the 1976 Copyright Act generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right to do and to authorize others to do the following: • reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords • prepare derivative works based upon the work • distribute copies or phonorecords of the work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending • perform the work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audio­ visual works • display the work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work • perform the work publicly (in the case of sound recordings*) by means of a digital audio transmission In addition, certain authors of works of visual art have the rights of attribu­ tion and integrity as described in section 106A of the 1976 Copyright Act. For further information, see Circular 40, Copyright Registration for Works of the Visual Arts. It is illegal for anyone to violate any of the rights provided by the copyright law to the owner of copyright. These rights, however, are not unlimited in Circular Circular scope.
    [Show full text]
  • Traditional Knowledge & Intellectual Property: a TRIPS-Compatible
    Vanderbilt University Law School Scholarship@Vanderbilt Law Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications Faculty Scholarship 2005 Traditional Knowledge & Intellectual Property: A TRIPS-Compatible Approach Daniel J. Gervais Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/faculty-publications Part of the Contracts Commons, and the Intellectual Property Law Commons Recommended Citation Daniel J. Gervais, Traditional Knowledge & Intellectual Property: A TRIPS-Compatible Approach, 2005 Michigan State Law Review. 137 (2005) Available at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/faculty-publications/830 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at Scholarship@Vanderbilt Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Vanderbilt Law. For more information, please contact [email protected]. +(,1 2 1/,1( Citation: 2005 Mich. St. L. Rev. 137 2005 Content downloaded/printed from HeinOnline (http://heinonline.org) Mon Jun 4 15:16:16 2012 -- Your use of this HeinOnline PDF indicates your acceptance of HeinOnline's Terms and Conditions of the license agreement available at http://heinonline.org/HOL/License -- The search text of this PDF is generated from uncorrected OCR text. Retrieved from DiscoverArchive, Vanderbilt University’s Institutional Repository This work was originally published in 2005 Mich. St. L. Rev. 137 2005 TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE & INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY: A TRIPS-COMPATIBLE APPROACH Daniel Gervais" 2005 MICH. ST. L. REV. 137 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ............................................ 137 I. TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE & INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ...... 140 II. COMPATIBILITY ANALYSIS ................................ 149 A. Nature of the Owner ................................ 149 B. Nature of the Object ................................ 151 C. Nature of the Right(s) ..............................
    [Show full text]
  • US Copyright, Patent and Trademark Law
    An Outline of US Copyright, Patent and Trademark Law Edition 1.0 5th March 2006 From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection ''Note: current parts of this book can be found at http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/ US_Copyright_Law http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/ US_Patent_Law http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/US_Trademark_Law '' AUTHORS ...................................................................................................................................................................2 US COPYRIGHT LAW..................................................................................................................................................3 Introduction ...........................................................................................................................................................3 Copyrightable works..............................................................................................................................................3 Formalities.............................................................................................................................................................5 Rights.....................................................................................................................................................................6 Infringement and other offenses ............................................................................................................................7 US PATENT LAW......................................................................................................................................................11
    [Show full text]
  • Not a Spike Lee Joint? Issues in the Authorship of Motion Pictures Under U.S
    NOT A SPIKE LEE JOINT? ISSUES IN THE AUTHORSHIP OF MOTION PICTURES UNDER U.S. COPYRIGHT LAW F. Jay Dougherty Motion pictures are generally highly collaborative works, containing many different creative contributions. In the United States motion picture industry, most of those contributions are created as works made for hire for an employer or commissioning party, simplifying potential questions as to rights and obligations among the contributors under copyright law. Occasionally, contributions are created without documentation and outside of a potential work made for hire relationship, giving rise to issues as to ownership of copyright. In one recent case, involving the motion picture Malcolm X, such a situationarose. The court in that case addressed those issues by creating special requirements for motion picture joint works. This Article reviews fundamental copyright law concepts of authorship both as to individual author works and as to works having multiple authors. It reviews existing law concerning the role of creative control and fixation in relation to authorship determinations and concludes that an individual who contributes or who actually controls the creation of minimally creative expression is an author under U.S. copyright law. Copyright law addressing various types of multiple author works, such as derivative works and collective works, may apply to certain contributions to a motion picture, but Congress and commentators have assumed that a motion picture is primarily a joint work among its primary creative contributors. Professor Dougherty criticizes recent judicially created limitations on joint work determination and suggests that courts or the legislature should reconsider the consequences of such a determination in the context of highly collaborative, multiauthor works such as motion pictures.
    [Show full text]
  • Who Owns the Movies? Joint Authorship Under the Copyright Act of 1976 After Childress V
    UCLA UCLA Entertainment Law Review Title Who Owns The Movies? Joint Authorship under the Copyright Act of 1976 after Childress v. Taylor and Thomson v. Larson Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6720n1r2 Journal UCLA Entertainment Law Review, 7(1) ISSN 1073-2896 Author Gorman, Seth F. Publication Date 1999 DOI 10.5070/LR871026990 Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Who Owns The Movies? Joint Authorship under the Copyright Act of 1976 after Childress v. Taylor and Thomson v. Larson Seth F. Gorman* I. INTRODUCTION A substantial split between the courts of appeals of the United States and substantial confusion among the district courts has devel- oped with respect to the test for determining "joint works" or "co- authorship" under the Copyright Act of 1976.1 The Supreme Court has not directly addressed the question of the appropriate test for joint authorship. The Copyright Act of 1976 provides that "a work pre- pared by two or more authors with the intention that their contribu- tions be merged into inseparable or interdependent parts of a 2unitary whole" are deemed "joint works" and the authors "co-authors." Although the statutory language appears straightforward and lit- eral, courts are concerned about affording co-authorship rights in film productions to each and every collaborator who did not assign his or her rights to the film or who is not a formal employee of the studio. The implications of co-authorship are profound. A co-author cannot . Seth Gorman is a litigator with the intellectual property and entertainment law firm of Flynn, Sheridan, Tabb & Stillman with offices in San Diego and Boston.
    [Show full text]
  • International Copyright: Principles, Law, and Practice
    International Copyright: Principles, Law, and Practice Paul Goldstein OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS International Copyright This page intentionally left blank International Copyright Principles, Law, and Practice Paul Goldstein Lillick Professor of Law Stanford University 1 2001 3 Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogotá Buenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Paris São Paulo Shanghai Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Copyright © 2001 by Paul Goldstein Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Goldstein, Paul, 1943– International copyright : principles, law, and practice / Paul Goldstein. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 0-19-512885-0 1. Copyright. 2. Copyright, International. I. Title. K1420.5 .G65 2000 341.7'582—dc21 00-024776 135798642 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper To Jan and Elizabeth This page intentionally left blank preface This book surveys the law of copyright between and among nations. Apart from applicable legal rules, the book describes the practices that animate international copyright and the principles that underlie it. The practicing lawyer engaged in licensing or litigating a copyrighted work abroad, or over- seeing the exploitation of a foreign work in his own country, will find guid- ance in these pages; so too will the researcher or student who wants to under- stand the forces that shape the copyright and neighboring rights laws of other countries and that control their interplay in the international system.
    [Show full text]
  • A Proposed Amendment Concerning Deliberate Omissions of Notice Lynn Mclain University of Baltimore, [email protected]
    University of Baltimore Law ScholarWorks@University of Baltimore School of Law All Faculty Scholarship Faculty Scholarship 1985 The opC yright Notice Requirement In The nitU ed States: A Proposed Amendment Concerning Deliberate Omissions Of Notice Lynn McLain University of Baltimore, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.law.ubalt.edu/all_fac Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Lynn McLain, The Copyright Notice Requirement In The United States: A Proposed Amendment Concerning Deliberate Omissions Of Notice, (1985). Available at: http://scholarworks.law.ubalt.edu/all_fac/892 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at ScholarWorks@University of Baltimore School of Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@University of Baltimore School of Law. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE REQUIREMENT IN THE UNITED STATES: A PROPOSED AMENDMENT CONCERNING DELIBERATE OMISSIONS OF NOTICE Lynn McLain* I. INTRODUCTION Outside the United States, many countries take the position that an author owns the copyright to his or her work simply by virtue of having created it; copyright protection is not conditioned on compliance with notice or other formalities. 1 The United States, however, has historically required copyright notice to be placed on works which are published. Judge Friendly succinctly explained the American position: "The notice requirement serves an important public purpose; the copyright proprie­ tor is protected so long and only so long as he gives effective warning to trespassers that they are entering on forbidden ground."2 During the proceedings which led to the recent major revision of the • Professor, University of Baltimore School of Law.
    [Show full text]
  • Chapter 2100 Renewal Registration
    COMPENDIUM: Chapter 2100 Renewal Registration 2101 What This Chapter Covers This Chapter covers renewal registration of works that fall under the provisions of the Copyright Renewal Act of 1992, i.e., works that secured copyright by registration or publication between 1964 and 1977, inclusive. The purposes are: • To provide an overview of the renewal system and the effects of the Copyright Renewal Act of 1992 on renewal registration; • To provide guidance to the public and U.S Copyright Office staff in registering renewal claims under Section 304(a) of Title 17, as amended by the Copyright Renewal Act of 1992; and • To explain Office policy regarding certain copyright matters as they relate specifically to renewal registration. This Chapter is divided into eight parts: • Part I provides an overview of the renewal system as it evolved from 1909 to 1992. Start here to read about the terms of copyright and renewal provisions of the Copyright Act of 1909 and how they evolved. • Part II explains the impact of the Copyright Renewal Act of 1992 on renewal registration in general. Start here to read about this amendment and how it affects renewal registration. • Part III explains renewal registration requirements in general and how to complete Form RE or Form RE/Addendum. Start here for an overview of renewal registration requirements, or how to complete Form RE and Form RE/Addendum. • Part IV explains renewal registration requirements for works that were not registered for the original term. Start here to read about the renewal registration requirements for a particular type of work. • Part V discusses several broad copyright matters as they relate to renewal registration.
    [Show full text]
  • Employer's Copyright Vis-À-Vis Author's Right 113
    Journal of Intellectual Property Rights Vol 10, March 2005, pp 112-118 Employer’s Copyright vis-à-vis Author’s Right: An Unresolved Legal Dilemma Harsh Kumar The National University of Juridical Sciences, N U J S Bhawan, 12 L B Block, Sector-III, Salt Lake, Kolkata 700 098 Received 11 August 2004, revised 7 February 2005 This article explores the protection to authors-employees and freelancers-in India in the light of the recent US decision in the Tasini case. Traversing the history and context of the Tasini case, particularly, explaining the court’s philosophy behind the recognition of a freelancers right over his employer/publisher, the paper highlights the concept of authorship in India and the significant differences in the manner employees and freelancers are treated under the Indian legal system. Keywords: Tasini, employees’ copyright, freelancer’s copyright The bundle of rights, which copyright professes to be, than an employer/publisher. This decision might has a profound impact in the determination of render security to freelancers against the exploitation authorship. With the theory of indivisibility of of their works by employers/publishers in the copyrights gaining redundancy,1 coupled with the American world. However, when viewed in the Indian increase in electronic publishing, complex issues arise context, the decision opens an arena of complex as regards authorship of a copyrightable work. issues as already aforesaid like the determination of Laws virtually vest authorship to the creator of an copyright ownership to the intricate issue of the original work2. This simplicity in the basic applicability of moral rights; the analysis of which understanding of copyright ownership, however, forms the crux of this paper.
    [Show full text]
  • "The Exclusive Right " of Authors L
    Journal of Intellectual Property Law Volume 1 | Issue 1 Article 5 October 1993 Copyright and "The Exclusive Right " of Authors L. Ray Patterson University of Georgia School of Law Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/jipl Part of the Constitutional Law Commons, and the Intellectual Property Law Commons Recommended Citation L. R. Patterson, Copyright and "The Exclusive Right " of Authors, 1 J. Intell. Prop. L. 1 (1993). Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/jipl/vol1/iss1/5 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ Georgia Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Intellectual Property Law by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ Georgia Law. Please share how you have benefited from this access For more information, please contact [email protected]. Patterson: Copyright and "The Exclusive Right " of Authors THE JOURNAL OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW VOLUME 1 FALL 1993 NUMBER 1 ARTICLES COPYRIGHT AND "THE EXCLUSIVE RIGHT" OF AUTHORS L. Ray Patterson* The Congress shall have Power... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries. U.S. CONST. art. I, § 8, cl. 8 (emphasis added). The origin and progress of laws, securing to authors the exclusive right ofpublishing and vending their literary works, constitutes an article in the history of a country of no inconsiderable importance. NOAH WEBSTER, POLITICAL, LITERARY, AND MORAL SUBJECTS 173 (1843) (emphasis added). * Pope Brock Professor of Law, University of Georgia.
    [Show full text]