4 ms·
> Unless the author of a work is an employee or explicitly assigns copyright to someone else, the author retains the copyright. Presumably you're talking from
by SEMW 14y ago
> Unless the author of a work is an employee or explicitly assigns copyright to someone else, the author retains the copyright.
Presumably you're talking from a US perspective. I've no idea about US law, but certainly here in the UK, while that's true in theory it's pretty flexible in practice.
E.g. there was a case* where Doc Martens commissioned a logo but didn't use a proper contract, and didn't get the designer to assign copyright to them. The designer then tried to sell the logo to a competitor. The courts had no trouble at all finding there was an implied term in the contract transferring the copyright to Doc Martens. Such a term was necessary to give the usual business efficacy to a contract for logo design. I.e. if you'd asked the parties at the time of contracting whether the designer would retain the copyright and so the right to sell it to a competitor, both of them would have said 'of course not'.
* Griggs v Evans [2005] EWCA Civ 11
IANYAL.
- brudgers 14y agoSounds like the strength of Doc Martens' case would have been on trademark if the issue was a logo.
- SEMW 14y agoNah, the case was just about the copyright ownership. The company that bought the copyright (Raben) was an Australian footwear company that sold Doc Martens. Griggs weren't trying to stop them using the logo and there was no passing off, so there was no suggestion of a registered trademark or passing off action. They just wanted a declaration that they own the copyright, for obvious reasons. (It's not clear why Raben bought the copyright off the designer and what they were planning on doing with it. Apparently they just didn't like Griggs and wanted to piss them off... see first instance para 12). Here's the first instance decision, which explains the background: http://www.5rb.com/docs/Griggs%20Group%20Ltd-v-Evans%20ChD%202%20Dec%202003.pdf http://www.5rb.com/docs/Griggs%20Group%20Ltd-v-Evans%20ChD%2... And the CA decision: http://judgmental.org.uk/judgments/EWCA-Civ/2005/[2005]_EWCA_Civ_11.html http://judgmental.org.uk/judgments/EWCA-Civ/2005/[2005]_EWCA... (currently down, but google has it cached if you don't have westlaw access)