| > And that rarely holds up in court, especially in California. Flowchart to help determine employer ownership of inventions: https://www.oncontracts.com/docs/Who-owns-an-employee-invent... (from 2010; annotated w/ citations to state statutes) (self-cite). EDIT: Ownership of copyright in an employee-created "original work of authorship" will depend on the facts. Here are a couple of cases: CASE 1: (A) The employee-author acted "within the scope of employment" in creating the work, AND (B) the employer and employee do not have an agreement altering ownership. RESULT 1: Under 17 U.S.C. 201(b), the employer owns the copyright in the work. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/201 CASE 2: (A) Employee-author did not act "within the scope of employment" in creating the work, AND (B) the employer and employee did not have an agreement governing ownership of the work. RESULT 2: Under 17 U.S.C. 201(a), the employee owns the copyright in the work. Note that calling something a "work made for hire" doesn't automatically make it one — the work must fit into one of nine statutory categories [0], AND the parties must agree, before the work is created, that the work will be a work made for hire. [0] https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Community_for_Creative_Non-Viole... |