The default answer is that the owner of copyright in a work is the author of that work. However, there are circumstances where another person or entity who is not the author may own the copyright:
- The author may assign (i.e. give) his or her copyright to someone else.
- An agreement or contract between the author and another person or company may state that copyright in the work would be owned by that other person or company. This agreement could state that after a certain period elapses, copyright ownership would return to the original author (this might arise in a publishing agreement)
- Copyright may belong to the author\’s employer.
The nature of an employment relationship affects ownership of copyright. For example, an employee who creates a work in the course of her duties probably would not own copyright in the work, although she would be the author. But a person who is commissioned to make a particular work and is allowed to use his own skill and judgment in its creation–for example, an artist commissioned to produce a sculpture–would own the copyright in the work, unless there was an agreement to the contrary.
Whoever the copyright owner is, she may assign or license some or all of her rights under the Copyright Act to another person. Section 13 of the Copyright Act states that an agreement to assign or license a right must be in writing.
In an assignment, the right is transferred (for example, sold) to the other person. This other person becomes the copyright owner, and the previous copyright owner does not retain that right anymore. In a licence, the copyright owner (the licensor) remains the copyright owner, but permits the other person (the licensee) to carry out an activity, on an exclusive, sole, or a non-exclusive basis. If the arrangement is exclusive, the licensor has agreed not to give a licence to anyone else and that only the licensee can exploit those rights (even to the exclusion of the licensor); if the arrangement is a sole licence, then the licensor has agreed not to give a licence to anyone else; and if the arrangement is non-exclusive, the licensor can license another person.
The copyright owner may parcel off her rights to different assignees or licensees. Those rights, however, may revert back to the author\’s heirs after a certain period of time after the author\’s death. For example, the author of a popular comic book series might own copyright in the books and pictures of the characters in the books. The author could assign (sell) the movie rights to a production company, and license a manufacturer to make toys. This author would no longer be able to stop a third person from converting his comic books into a movie without permission, because that particular right was assigned to the production company (so it would be the production company\’s responsibility to stop such infringers). However, the author can still sue a third person for making toys based on his characters without permission.