Collective work

"[2] Section 10.2 of the TRIPS Agreement, to which members of the World Trade Organization are bound, states, "Compilations of data or other material, whether in machine readable or other form, which by reason of the selection or arrangement of their contents constitute intellectual creations shall be protected as such.

In a 1997 case in the Netherlands it was held that reuse of newspaper articles on a website and CD-ROM went beyond the implied license.

In Germany any attempt by the author to grant rights to exploit their work in a way that was unknown when the contract was made is null and void under the law.

[7] Under the statute, copyright was for the first time vested in authors rather than publishers; it also included provisions for the public interest, such as a legal deposit scheme.

363, 2006 SCC 43 is a 2006 Supreme Court of Canada decision on the ownership of copyright in published text that are stored in databases.

[16] The editor receives a separate copyright in the collective work for their efforts as long as they meet the originality standard set by the government.

5. c. 46), no copyright vests in the proprietor of a collective work unless the author is employed under a contract of service or apprenticeship, or there is an assignment in writing; and when the copyright vests in the proprietor of a periodical by reason of a contract of service or apprenticeship, the author may restrain separate publication.

[19] With the 1911 act the author of a contribution would regain copyright after 25 years, but this would be concurrent with the publisher's right in the collective work.

[21] The compiler, or author of the collection, owns copyright in the expression he or she contributed, which is primarily the selection and arrangement of the separate contributions, but may include such things as a preface, advertisements, etc., that the collective author created.

[21] The Supreme Court case of New York Times Co. v. Tasini (2001) concerned free-lance journalists who had been paid for their contributions to paper editions of newspapers and magazines, but their contracts had not covered digital rights for reproduction on CD-ROMs or publication on the Internet.

[21] In Faulkner v. National Geographic Enterprises Inc. (2005), a Court of Appeal ruled that an electronic version of a newspaper was a revision of the collective work if it reproduced the paper version identically, including advertisements and photographs.

[21] "The New Renaissance", the report of the Comité des Sages Reflection Group on Bringing Europe's Cultural Heritage Online, published on 10 January 2011, stated that the public sector had a duty to digitize their cultural heritage.

Under the heading of "Ensuring wide access to and use of digitised public domain material" the report stated:[23] The Copyright Term Directive of 2006 was intended to address the second concern, but has not been effective in harmonizing the terms and definitions.

[28] However, all authorities agree that the concept of an oeuvre collective in France covers dictionaries, encyclopaedias and periodical works such as newspapers or magazines.

"A collective work shall be the property, unless proved otherwise, of the natural or legal person under whose name it has been disclosed.

[32] In a 22 March 2012 decision the French Supreme Court (Cour de cassation) stated that "the natural or legal person at the initiative of a collective work is vested with the author's rights over this work and, in particular, the moral rights prerogatives".

[34] The rise of the Internet has opened new questions about the rights of the authors of contributions to a collective work.

[36] The main relevant law in Germany is the Copyright Act of 9 September 1965, the Gesetz über Urheberrecht und verwandte Schutzrechte (UrhG).

The authors grant the rights of exploitation to a third party who decides what works to include in the collection.

For magazines, newspapers and other periodical works, each individual part or issue is given an independent term.

This is stated in paragraph 2 of Article 38 of the Copyright Law stating: "The right to use their own contributions separately is reserved for the individual employees of the collective work, in compliance with the agreed terms, and failing that, the following standards."

Moreover, the Article 38 also provides that: "With a collective work, unless otherwise agreed, the right to economic use is with the publisher of the same" where "publisher" means the natural or legal person who assumes the economic risk and bear the costs imposed by the creation and publication of the work.

It is considered that the authors transfer unlimited and exclusive rights to all the material and other copyright in the collective work, unless otherwise provided by contract.

Unless otherwise agreed, the rights to the collective work belong to the person who publishes and disseminates it under their name.

[48] The duration of rights over a collective work shall be sixty years from the date of its disclosure.

It follows the general principle that ownership is originally vested in the author, but makes an exception with collective works.

[55] The person who initiated and directed the creation of a collective work is the original owner of the economic rights.