QUESTION
If an employee of a church writes a song at the instructions of the pastor, then that employeeresigns or gets fired, who does the song belong to?
Asked on Oct 09th, 2012 on Entertainment Law - Alabama
More details to this question:
We had a musician of our church write, arranged and subsequently record songs that he wrote during a live album recording which was all paid for by the church. After the recording he quit his position at the church. The live album is still in production but the former employee is now saying we wants to copyright the songs he wrote. We are trying to figure out if he owns the songs or because he was a paid employee doing what he was instructed to do does the church own the songs.
1 ANSWER
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Nancy J. Flint Attorney at Law, P.A.
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Copyright of a work, such as a song, comes into existence the instant that the song is written. The question here is, who owns the copyright? The general rule is that the author of the work owns the copyright, which in this case would be the musician. There are circumstances where someone who hires a person to create a work can own the copyright, namely under the "work made for hire" doctrine for independent contractors and the employment situation if the author was an employee hired for the purpose of creating such works. Just paying someone to create a work is not enough; if the musician was not an employee, there MUST be a written agreement stating that the church owns the copyright in the songs he wrote. This gets complicated so it would be advisable to consult an IP attorney as there may be other facts that would be relevant.
Answered on Oct 13th, 2012 at 12:35 PM