I recently produced a brochure for a community group, as a favour. None of the material in the brochure is my work. Printing of the brochure was paid for by the community group. My question is I hope a simple one, who owns the copyright of the brochure?
Patrick
Community group brochure
Re: Community group brochure
Hi pilax
It sounds as if the brochure is a compilation and it will be either a work of joint authorship (see section 10 CDPA), or it is a work of co-authorship (see section 10A CDPA). So for instance if one person wrote one section on his/her own, then he or she would be a co-author along with the writers of the other sections. However if two people wrote a section together such that it is impossible to realistically separate out one individual's contribution, that would be a case of joint authorship. The whole pamphlet could be a mixture of both types of authorship. Obviously writers of the text are separate from any artistic contributions such as artwork or photographs.
The main distinction which arises out this is that, if a third person came along and wanted to copy the piece which had been jointly authored, both authors would need to give their permission, and if either withheld permission then the piece couldn't be copied. With co-authorship, each individual author retains his or her rights over his/her piece. As far as the length of the copyright protection is concerned, with works of joint authoriship, copyright lasts for the lifetime of the longest surviving author plus 70 years from the end of the year of their death.
The publisher of the pamphlet (you perhaps?) may be entitled to the copyright (which lasts for 25 years) in the typographical layout of the edition (see Section 8 and Section 15 CDPA). Ideally to prevent the need for every single contributor to agree in the case of a third party asking to copy the pamphlet (for instance to put on their website on a related subject) it would be sensible for all the contributors to agree in writing that one person - the publisher usually - can act on behalf of them all with respect to copyright.
It sounds as if the brochure is a compilation and it will be either a work of joint authorship (see section 10 CDPA), or it is a work of co-authorship (see section 10A CDPA). So for instance if one person wrote one section on his/her own, then he or she would be a co-author along with the writers of the other sections. However if two people wrote a section together such that it is impossible to realistically separate out one individual's contribution, that would be a case of joint authorship. The whole pamphlet could be a mixture of both types of authorship. Obviously writers of the text are separate from any artistic contributions such as artwork or photographs.
The main distinction which arises out this is that, if a third person came along and wanted to copy the piece which had been jointly authored, both authors would need to give their permission, and if either withheld permission then the piece couldn't be copied. With co-authorship, each individual author retains his or her rights over his/her piece. As far as the length of the copyright protection is concerned, with works of joint authoriship, copyright lasts for the lifetime of the longest surviving author plus 70 years from the end of the year of their death.
The publisher of the pamphlet (you perhaps?) may be entitled to the copyright (which lasts for 25 years) in the typographical layout of the edition (see Section 8 and Section 15 CDPA). Ideally to prevent the need for every single contributor to agree in the case of a third party asking to copy the pamphlet (for instance to put on their website on a related subject) it would be sensible for all the contributors to agree in writing that one person - the publisher usually - can act on behalf of them all with respect to copyright.
Advice or comment provided here is not and does not purport to be legal advice as defined by s.12 of Legal Services Act 2007
Re: Community group brochure
Thanks for your reply. It's far more complicated than I thought. I had assumed that as I had designed the brochure I would own the copyright of the thing as a whole. So from what you say, any reproduction of the brochure would require the agreement of myself and all the contributors. There is no issue here. No-one is arguing about copyright. It was just that I was interested in the copyright question. Thanks again.