QUESTION
I write comedic material and occasionally I write with a partner. I can understand that when two people write something together its shared ownership.
Asked on Jan 23rd, 2012 on Intellectual Property - Illinois
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But what if I were to write a 500 word comedic sketch and a writing partner suggests one or two words to be changed. Do they then have a stake in the finished product? Does one person have more ownership than the other?
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Nancy J. Flint Attorney at Law, P.A.
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When two or more people collaborate on a project that is intended to be a single work, they are joint owners of the work that they create so long as each owner contributes something that itself is protectible by copyright. Each owner can license or sell (assign) do whatever they want with the work without getting permission from the other owner, except that each owner must share profits they make from the work. This means that neither owner alone can grant an exclusive license or sell the entire copyright because neither owner owns all of the rights in the work. Neither owner owns any more rights than any other owner, they share equally unless they have a contract between them that splits ownership differently. Under your facts, it is questionable that changing 1 or 2 words in a 500 word comedic sketch would be a work of authorship that is protectible by copyright, so the writing partner may not be a joint owner.
Answered on Feb 10th, 2012 at 8:18 PM
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Your initial statement is not necessarily correct. As a general matter, in order to be deemed joint authors of a work, each party must contribute expressive content and is itself copyrightable. A word or short phrase is not copyrightable. Changing a "few" words, without more, would not generally rise to the level required to be deemed a joint author for copyright purposes.
While this may solve the problem for copyright-law purposes, it is not necessarily dispositive under the law of partnership. It is possible that parties agree and intend that each shall be a co-owner of a copyrighted work, even though one of them contributes nothing to it. Your "partner" may decide to sue you to enforce what he believes is his agreement with you to share in the economic benefits of this venture, even though he is not a "co-author" for copyright-law purposes.
This is a very good example of why people should enter into clear written agreements regarding these matters in advance.
Answered on Jan 23rd, 2012 at 8:09 AM