Can a corporation or other entity that is not a natural person be the legal &quot;author&quot; of a work for copyright pourposes Copyright term is now determined in most cases by who is the &quot;author&quot; of a work, even if the copyright is promptly sold or transferred to another. So-called &quot;moral rights&quot; (or non-economic rights) are also determined by authorship. So is it possible for a corporation, business, or other legal entity to be the legal author of a work for purposes of copyright law?
In the US, Yes 17 USC 201 (b) provides that: (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, and, unless the parties have expressly agreed otherwise in a written instrument signed by them, owns all of the rights comprised in the copyright. &quot;Work Made for Hire&quot; is defined in 17 USC 101, which reads: A “work made for hire” is— (1) a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment; or (2) a work specially ordered or commissioned for use as a contribution to a collective work, as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, as a translation, as a supplementary work, as a compilation, as an instructional text, as a test, as answer material for a test, or as an atlas, if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire. For the purpose of the foregoing sentence, a “supplementary work” is a work prepared for publication as a secondary adjunct to a work by another author for the purpose of introducing, concluding, illustrating, explaining, revising, commenting upon, or assisting in the use of the other work, such as forewords, afterwords, pictorial illustrations, maps, charts, tables, editorial notes, musical arrangements, answer material for tests, bibliographies, appendixes, and indexes, and an “instructional text” is a literary, pictorial, or graphic work prepared for publication and with the purpose of use in systematic instructional activities. In Germany, No According to the Wikipedia article The author is the creator of their work, which enjoys copyright protection in accordance with the UrhG, §§ 7, 1, 2 UrhG. Accordingly, all work resulting from a personal intellectual activity is copyright protected.(Gruber: Gewerblicher Rechtsschutz und Urheberrecht, 2nd Ed., Altenberge 2008, p.73) The „principle of non-transferability“ of full or divided authorship according to § 29 I UrhG is valid. Therefore, the creator of an original work can neither transfer their personal right as a creator,[(Cf. Götting: Gewerblicher Rechtsschutz und Urheberrecht, 1st Ed., München 2005, p.250) nor the complete rights for the exploitation of their work to others. (Cf. Rehbinder: Urheberrecht, 15th Ed., München 2008, p.113 f.) Thus in German law, a corporation not only cannot be an author, it can never own a copyright, but only a license - though that might be exclusive, barring the author from using the work. In the UK, in some cases Section 9 of the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 reads: (1)In this Part “author”, in relation to a work, means the person who creates it. (2)That person shall be taken to be— ( aa ) in the case of a sound recording, the producer; ( ab )in the case of a film, the producer and the principal director;] ( b)in the case of a broadcast, the person making the broadcast (see section 6(3)) or, in the case of a broadcast which relays another broadcast by reception and immediate re-transmission, the person making that other broadcast; (d)in the case of the typographical arrangement of a published edition, the publisher. The publisher will often be a corporation, and the produccer I belive could be.
I know of no cause of action related to &quot;misrepresentation of intellectual property&quot; (I believe it may be a phrase used colloquially in the context of academic integrity). If such a cause of action exists, I'll leave it to another answer to discuss. This answer approaches your question through the lens of copyright infringement and moral rights. A reproduction is an infringement if it substantially reproduces the original. Short quotes, properly attributed, will often be fair use, even if exactly reproduced. If an exact reproduction is not an infringement (e.g. because it copied too short a phrase) or if it is fair use, then a slightly altered reproduction a fortiori would also not be an infringement or would be fair use. In jurisdictions that recognize moral rights, there may be circumstances where an alteration, even to spelling, would be a violation of an author's moral rights. But to make out a violation of an author's moral rights based only on a spelling alteration, the spelling would have to be critical to the integrity of the work (e.g. perhaps the choice of dialect) and the alteration would have to be prejudicial to the author's honour or reputation.
Absolutely. Copyright exists when the work is created, publication is immaterial.
Yes. Content not created by a user is not protected by Section 230, and if the platform agents or employees begin to substantively edit content, the platform becomes a co-author rather than merely a platform for that content.
One principle of copyright law is that if you can prove independent authorship, there cannot be liability no matter how similar your work is to the prior work. "If by some magic a man who had never known it were to compose anew Keats's 'Ode on a Grecian Urn,' he would be an 'author,' and if he copyrighted it, others might not copy that poem, though they might of course copy Keats's." (Sheldon v. MGM Pictures Corp., 81 F.2d 49, 54 (2d Cir. 1936)). Now, of course, the challenge is proving that you've never heard a given piece of music, or never read a particular work of fiction. If you have, even unconscious copying exposes to liability. And if the plaintiff can prove that you had access (such as the scriptwriter who sent a copy to a movie studio), they will have an even easier time proving the copying. If there is no proof of copying or not-copying, the copying can be proved circumstantially either through expert testimony or the jury's evaluation. The expert might testify something like "There is an identical tonal progression in these two songs, even though they were written in different keys. There were a million different ways the songs could have been written, but they are identical in this respect." The jury can consider that information and find the defendant liable. Or, the judge may simply tell the jury, "You may listen to these two songs, and find the defendant liable if you find them to be substantially similar to the extent that it is more likely than not that the defendant copied the plaintiff." TL;DR: The process can be conclusive, but if it isn't, then the output will be the evidence that the jury will consider.
This seems to be a mix of question about law and a meta-question about this site, but I'll treat it as an on-topic question about law. The author of a question, or answer, owns the copyright to their contributions, and they can re-publish to their heart's content. Any user who posts here grants a license to SE and other users to use content posted here, so I don't have to ask you permission to quote you. As part of the permission granted by SE to use this website, you have agreed to &quot;follow the rules&quot; set by SE. There are many rules, some spelled out more clearly that others. For example, if you post a question, you indirectly agreed that your content can be upvoted or down-voted. Certain content can be &quot;closed&quot; and deleted, when the content is deemed to violate the rules in particular ways (is spam, porn, abuse, or judged to be poor-quality). Judgment (on different matters) can be rendered by community managers, moderators, or other users. The agreement is here, see especially here. If we take the post that you linked to, it is quite possible that it was deleted because it is not a general legal question, in violation of the acceptable use policy. If you want a historical analysis of your particular case, it should be asked on Law Meta.
This is a case of nominative use. In general, it is fine to use trademarks to refer to the products trademarked, provided that a reasonable person would not be confused about who creates or provides the product, and would not think that the trademark holder has endorsed, authorized, or sponsored the book or other product that refers to the trademark. It is common to include a disclaimer stating that trademarks are owned by specific parities, and the author or publisher is not claiming them, nor claiming any endorsement or affiliation. Such a disclaimer makes the nominative function of the trade mark use clearer, and would make it harder for the trademark owner to prevail in an infringement suit. See This law.se question and answer for more info.
Yes, except for the part where you say &quot;thus&quot;. Copyright protection isn't limited to published works, though in the past this was the case with US law. Current US law defines publication as the distribution of copies or phonorecords of a work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending. The offering to distribute copies or phonorecords to a group of persons for purposes of further distribution, public performance, or public display, constitutes publication. A public performance or display of a work does not of itself constitute publication. Web distribution is one way to distribute a protected work. The distinction between published and unpublished works matters in terms of registration requirements, it figures into the question of the nationality of the author, the duration of protection for a work for hire and (pseudo)anonymous works, as well as the duration of protection for works created before January 1, 1978 but first published between then and January 1, 2003, and so on. The US Copyright office provides guidance that derives from court cases, and they have this to say about published vs. unpublished. They give as an example of publication (&quot;Offering to Distribute Copies or Phonorecords to a Group of Persons&quot;) Publication occurs when copies of a photograph are offered to clients, including but not limited to newspapers, magazines, agencies, wire services, and websites with a license permitting further distribution or display of the photograph. also An offer by the copyright owner on a public website to purchase and download an app that they developed and made accessible on that website constitutes publication of that app. German copyright law makes mention of &quot;publication&quot; as well, for instance The right of publication and of exploitation of the work accrues jointly to the joint authors; alterations to the work shall be permissible only with the consent of the joint authors. However, a joint author may not refuse his consent to publication, exploitation or alteration contrary to the principles of good faith. Each joint author shall be entitled to assert claims arising from violations of the joint copyright; he may, however, demand performance only to all of the joint authors. §6 says that (1) A work shall be deemed to have been published when it has been made available to the public with the consent of the rightholder. (2) A work shall be deemed to have been released when copies of the work have been offered, with the rightholder’s consent, to the public or brought to the market after their production in sufficient quantity. An artistic work shall also be deemed to have been released when the original or a copy of the work has been made permanently available to the public with the consent of the rightholder. One would have to inquire into the specifics of German law to know if &quot;putting one copy on a website&quot; constitutes being brought to the market after production in sufficient quantity.