What is copyright ownership

Copyright ownership confers six exclusive rights on the holder of the copyright in an original work of authorship:

• The right to reproduce and duplicate an original work;
• The right to create derivative works from the original work;
• The right to sell or transfer copies to the public through other means, such as renting or lending;
• The right to perform the work in public;
• The right to publicly display the work, as well as the right to publicly perform sound recordings via digital audio transmission

The author owns the rights associated with an original work of authorship. The “author” is usually the person who creates the copyrightable expression and actually fixes it in a tangible medium.

However, some original works of authorship are “works for hire.” In the most straightforward cases, this means that an employer or a commissioning entity has a contract with the creator to create the work, and the employer paid for the work and took the financial risks associated with it. The employer is the initial owner of the copyright and has the six exclusive rights mentioned above.

Work for hire is likely to be found in works created by an employee within the scope of employment, primarily in the workplace and on the clock. Courts will consider whether the work was started to benefit the employer. Similarly, an independent contractor's work can be considered a work for hire if the parties expressly agree in a written, signed instrument that it is for hire, and the work is a contribution to a collective work, part of a motion picture or audiovisual work, a translation, a compilation, a supplementary or instructional text, a test or its answers, or an atlas.