On Mon, 2004-06-07 at 10:15, Benno wrote: > I was under the impression that in Australian copyright law there could only > be one copyright owner. (That could be either a person or a comany).
There can be joint ownership. This often happens in bands (ie, all members agree to be copyright holders, whomever actually authored the lyrics, music and arrangement). That way non-author band members aren't ripped off. More common with computer programs is the "rights assignment". You still own the copyright, but you non-exclusively assign all rights to another party. The FSF rights assignment is a good example. There is no requirement in Australian copyright law that the copyright holder be a full legal entity -- a child or an unincorporated joint venture can hold copyright. (Conversely, gov't depts don't hold copyright, the state does). > They also have really good fact sheets. One of the ones I read implied > that joint copyright was not valid in anyway. Hmmm. Got a reference, I looked at the most obvious one, "G58 Ownership of Copyright", and with some minor quibbles it seems to be right. Regards, Glen -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
