Section I The Author
Primâ facie the author is owner of the copyright. If he is in a position of employment the right in his work may vest on creation in his employer; or he may have contracted in such a way that the property passes to another.1450 But some relationship or contract must be shown whereby the right passes, otherwise it remains the property of the author. The author who does work on commission does not necessarily part with his copyright, it may be expressly or impliedly reserved;1451 neither does an author under a publishing agreement necessarily convey his rights to the publisher.1452 In either case it will depend on a construction of the contract between the parties.
The author of a literary or artistic work is the man who creates it in his mind.1453 He may employ others in the execution of the details or in the merely manual or mechanical work and yet remain the sole author. The author of a photograph is the man who arranges the subject and makes choice of the time and light. It does not make him any less the sole owner of the work that he employs some one to take off the cap or perform other manual details. A man who compiles a dictionary or a directory may be the sole owner of it, although he has had scores of employees working up the separate parts for him.1454 But to constitute one an author he must show that his was the “inventive” or “creative” mind; it will not do that he has suggested a scheme and employed or procured some one else to carry it out independently;1455 he must by his own intellectual labour applied to the material of his composition produce an arrangement or compilation new in itself.1456 There may be joint authorship resulting in co-ownership.
When an unpublished work or copyright belongs to two or more persons in common, whether as co-authors or co-assignees, either of the two may alone sue a wrongdoer,1457 and either may at his own expense publish the book without accounting to his co-owner.1458