From IPKat:
[Author Dr. Daniela] Simone assesses how UK law defines shared authorship and how authorship is then allocated among creative collaborators. The book confirms copyright’s reputation as a legal framework ill-suited for collaborative creative processes, arguing that it prefers single authorship (and ownership). As a result, rights tend to be concentrated in singular, rather than, multiple, hands.
Simone explains the ‘why’ for copyright’s bias for single authorship and where such bias might come from. Simone then challenges this bias by offering an alternative read on copyright and collective authorship.
The book opens with a description of sole versus joint-authorship under UK law (Chapter 2). Simone’s analysis of case law on joint authorship sheds light on the oddities and incoherencies of the doctrine.
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(1) Joint-authors are held to a higher standard. In comparing the tests of single authorship with that of joint-authorship, Simone reveals that UK courts hold parties to a higher standard when they seek ‘joint-authorship’, because they must demonstrate a more ‘significant’ or ‘substantial’ contribution to the work. This difference in threshold has no statutory basis, as the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA) is neutral on this question (as was the text of the previous statutory formulations, e.g. here).
(2) The test for joint-authorship is built upon a small number of highly fact-sensitive cases. There is scant precedent on joint-authorship to turn to for guidance. The few case law authorities that we do have are difficult to apply because each case involves different types of creative work, creative processes and collaboration patterns.
(3) The joint-authorship doctrine is ‘polluted’ by concerns about shared ownership. Judicial discussion on the attribution of joint authorship often address whether it would be practical for the ownership of the work to be shared between multiple parties. This approach, Simone argues, conflates two different concepts of copyright (authorship and ownership), which copyright law takes such care to distinguish.
(4) The test for joint-authorship breaches the principle of aesthetic neutrality. It is a well-established principle of copyright law that copyright should apply regardless of the work’s aesthetics, artistic quality or genre. Judges keeping to this principle in the context of joint-authorship claims have complicated this jurisprudence. This principle has courts avoiding language that might refer to the aesthetics, genre or quality of the work. This is especially true when judges assess the evidence submitted by the parties on the creative process and their relative contribution to the work. But courts end up producing open-ended, vague, abstract, and inconsistent language by being overly cautious on this point.
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Simone’s chief recommendation is to close this gap between the law and social norms on authorship and credits so that collective authorship enjoys its proper place within the framework of copyright. The author proposes to do so by importing into copyright law some of the more nuanced field-specific practices according to which collaborators negotiate authorship. Simone suggests that this should bring copyright into line with the expectations of creators on authorship and credits.
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These conclusions come after road-testing the joint-authorship doctrine on three types of collective authorship: Wikipedia entries (Chapter 4), Australian Indigenous Art (Chapter 5) and films (Chapter 6). The use of these three case studies in this way keeps Simone’s critique of the joint authorship doctrine rooted in concrete examples.
Link to the rest at IPKat
PG suggests that a takeaway for authors is that, if you are writing a book with a co-author, you should have a signed contract that, among other things, specifies how authorship will be handled for copyright and book credit purposes.
As with a great many things legal, problems rear their ugly heads in this area of human relationships when money (often, but not always, significant amounts of money) is involved. On occasion, pride works almost as well as money.