Complete Home & Office Legal Guide/Complete Home and Office Legal Guide (Chestnut) (1993).ISO/stat/fed/17ch2.ws

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/* BBS LEGAL GUIDE: Here's the second chapter of the Copyright
Code- read especially Sections 201 and 203*/

CHAPTER 2.  COPYRIGHT OWNERSHIP AND TRANSFER

Section
201. Ownership of copyright
202. Ownership of copyright as distinct from ownership of
material object
203. Termination of transfers and licenses granted by the author
204. Execution of transfers of copyright ownership
205. Recordation of transfers and other documents

                        _________________

S 201.  Ownership of copyright

(a) Initial ownership. Copyright in a work protected under this
title [17  USC SS et seq.] vests initially in the author or
authors of the work. The authors of a joint work are co-owners of
copyright in the work.

(b) Works made for hire. In the case of a work made for hire, the
employer or other person for whom the work was prepared is
considered the author for purposes of this title [17 USC SS 101
et seq.], and, unless the parties have expressly agreed otherwise
in a written instrument signed by them, owns all of the rights
comprised in the copyright.

/* Please see the case of Society for Creative Non-Violence Case,
in which the U.S. Supreme Court holds that independent contractors
works are not "works for hire" unless there is a written contract
to that effect.*/

(c) Contributions to collective works. Copyright in each separate
contribution to a collective work is distinct from copyright in
the collective work as a whole, and vests initially in the author
of the contribution. In the absence of an express transfer of the
copyright or of any rights under it, the owner of copyright in
the collective work is presumed to have acquired only the
privilege of reproducing and distributing the contribution as
part of that particular collective work, any revision of that
collective work, and any later collective work in the same
series.

(d) Transfer of ownership.  (1) The ownership of a copyright may
be transferred in whole or in part by any means of conveyance or
by operation of law, and may be bequeathed by will or pass as
personal property by the applicable laws of interstate
succession.

(2)  Any of the exclusive rights comprised in a copyright,
including any subdivision of any of the rights specified by
section 106 [17 USC S 106], may be transferred as provided by
clause (1) and owned separately.  The owner of any particular
exclusive right is entitled, to the extent of that right, to all
of the protection and remedies accorded to the copyright owner by
this title [17 USC SS 101 et seq.].

(e) Involuntary transfer. When an individual author's ownership
of a copyright, or of any of the exclusive rights under a
copyright,  has not previously been transferred voluntarily by
that individual author, no action by any governmental body or
other official or organization purporting to seize, expropriate,
transfer, or exercise rights of ownership with respect to the
copyright, or any of the exclusive rights under a copyright,
shall be given effect under this title [17 USC SS 101 et seq.]
except as is provided under Title 11.

S 202. Ownership of copyright as distinct from ownership of
material object

Ownership of a copyright, or of any of the exclusive rights under
a copyright, is distinct from ownership of any material object in
which the work is embodied. Transfer of ownership of any material
object, including the copy or phonorecord in which the work is
first fixed, does not of itself convey any rights in the
copyrighted work embodied in the object; nor, in the absence  of
an agreement, does transfer of ownership of a copyright or of any
exclusive rights under a copyright convey property rights in any
material object.

S 203. Termination of transfers and licenses granted by the
author

(a) Conditions for termination. In the case of any work other
than a work made for hire, the exclusive or nonexclusive grant of
a transfer or license of copyright or of any right under a
copyright, executed by the author on or after January 1, 1978,
otherwise than by will, is subject to termination under the
following conditions:

(1) In the case of a grant executed by one author, termination of
the grant may be effected by that author, or if the author is
dead, by the person or persons who, under clause (2) of this
subsection, own and are entitled to exercise a total of more than
one-half of that author's termination interest. In the case of a
grant executed by two or more authors of a joint work,
termination of the grant may be effected by a majority of the
authors who executed it; if any of such authors is dead, the
termination interest of any such author may be exercised as a
unit by the person or persons who, under clause (2) of this
subsection, own and are entitled to exercise a total of more than
one-half of that author's interest.

(2) Where an author is dead, his or her termination interest is
owned, and may be exercised, by his widow or her widower and his
or her children or grandchildren as follows:

(A) the widow or widower owns the author's entire termination
interest unless there are any surviving children or grandchildren
of the author, in which case the widow or widower owns one-half
of the author's interest;

(B) the author's surviving children, and the surviving children
of any dead child of the author, own the author's entire
termination interest unless there is a widow or widower, in which
case the ownership of one-half of the author's interest is
divided among them;

(C) the rights of the author's children and grandchildren are in
all cases divided among them and exercised on a per stirpes basis
according to the number of such author's children represented;
the share of the children of a dead child in a termination
interest  can be exercised only by the action of a  majority of
them.

(3) Termination of the grant may be effected at any time during
a period  of five years beginning at the end of thirty-five
years from the date of execution of the grant; or, if the grant
covers the right of publication of the work, the period begins at
the end of thirty-five years from the date of publication of the
work under the grant or at the end of forty years from the date
of execution of the grant, whichever term ends earlier.

/* Thus, thirty-five years after the assignment, it can be taken
back. This is a limit on assignments that are absolute on their
face. */

(4) The termination shall be effected by serving an advance
notice in writing, signed by number and proportion of owners of
termination interests required under clauses (1) and (2) of this
subsection, or by their duly authorized agents, upon the grantee
or the grantee's successor in title.

(A) The notice shall state the effective date of the termination,
which shall fall within the five-year period specified by clause
(3) of this subsection, and the notice shall be served not less
than two or more than ten years before that date. A copy of the
notice shall be recorded in the Copyright Office before the
effective date of termination, as a condition to its taking
effect.

(B) Termination of the grant may be effected notwithstanding  any
agreement to the contrary, including an agreement to make a will
or to make any future grant.

(b) Effect of termination. Upon the effective date of
termination, all rights under this title [17 USC SS 101 et seq.]
that were covered by the terminated grants revert to the author,
authors, and other persons owning termination interests under
clauses (1) and (2) of subsection (1), including those owners who
did not join in signing the notice of termination under clause
(4) of subsection (a), but with the following limitations:

(1) A derivative work prepared under authority of the grant
before its termination may continue to be utilized under the
terms of the grant after its termination, bu