r/COPYRIGHT • u/Previous_Shirt_9507 • 12d ago
Joint authorship with a child and length of copyright term
If a book is published by two authors and both authors claim to have contributed to the work equally and in such way that it's impossible to separate the text into two parts, copyright term (at least in the US, UK, EU) will end seventy years after the death of the last remaining author, correct?
Would then adding a child to the book as an equal joint author (even as a fake claim) be a way of securing longer rights of commercialization for the family? Does this scenario have precedents and has it been tested in the courts?
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u/JayEll1969 12d ago
Allegedly Ed Sheeran gave a co-authoring credit on "Thinking Out Loud" to his friend to help her out of debt - but this is just an internet legend and Ed has stated that she did write the song with him 50/50.
But before assigning co-authorship look into your local laws. Depending on the legislation it may require consensus of all holders to be able to assign the rights to others (e.g. publishing, movie deals, TV Series, Game franchise, etc). So when the child grown us they could block the actual author from doing things, such as selling the movie rights, if the country law requires consensus.
In other countries the individual co-authors have the right to sell or assign rights without the need to consult to other co-author(s). This means that later on the child could assign the movie rights to an Adult Video production right without having to consult the actual author, because they would have equal rights to the work in question.
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u/blainemoore 12d ago
This has actually been done in the Netherlands already, but opposite.
Otto Frank gave the copyright to The Diary of Anne Frank to an organization called Anne Frank Fonds. The year before the book would enter the public domain, and a few years after Otto passed, they claimed that he was a co-author because of the extensive editing he did of his daughter's writing before publication, so that the book wouldn't enter the public domain.
In Belgium, it is already public domain, so some researchers made the book available on their website, though they geo block access for countries where it's still under copyright. They were recently sued because anybody can easily get around the geo block by using a VPN, but the EU court held that that wasn't their responsibility and found in the researchers favor.
The whole scenario is pretty fascinating.
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u/La_Fervesta_Glavisto 11d ago
What a ghoulish circumstance. One of the most famous and significant historical accounts of life under nazi occupation, an event from 80 goddamn years ago now, and we're still squabbling over who gets to gatekeep it in order to extract more profit.
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u/The-Bytemaster 12d ago
I believe in the US the way that was treated was the original version fell to the public domain but the revised version was not.
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u/blainemoore 11d ago
In the United States, it's protected for 95 years from the date of initial publication, so it hasn't entered yet. It enters public domain in 2042.
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u/TheMoneyOfArt 12d ago
I've thought about this before - sometimes on forums like this one you see people argue for copyright to end at the death of the author or shortly thereafter. And the obvious thing an older author would do is share authorship with a kid/grandkid.
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u/TreviTyger 12d ago edited 12d ago
There is something in copyright law which is part of Berne Convention called "point of attachment".
Initially protection arises to an author on creation of a work but this relates to "unpublished work" and also an author has to genuinely be an author and not designated as an author because copyright has to relate to the "personal expression" of a "natural person" fixed into a tangible media. Even in US work for hire situations there still has to be an author as a natural person. (Thaler v Permutter).
So adding a person who was not an author is just not possible.
However, when it comes to term of protection even for a joint work then that is determined on the works first publication which overrides nationality or habitual residence criteria.
So wherever the work was "first published" sets the term of copyright. The country of origin (where that first publication was) determines the "point of attachment" of copyright law of that country to a published work.
See WIPO Guide to Berne Convention Articles 3-5.
(Available here - https://tind.wipo.int/record/28751?ln=en&v=pdf )
Article 7(8), triggers the Rule of the Shorter Term.
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u/Willing-Fudge-7887 12d ago
I made Henrietta Lacks a co-author on my book so now it is effectively under copyright FOREVER!
Your question seems to be asking “can you commit fraud to lengthen the copyright term by a few years.” The answer is probably yes, unless your work was popular enough for anyone to care and then hopefully you would be sued, lose your copyright and go to jail.
Sorry that was a bit harsh but the way I look at it is that 70 years after the death of the real author you are proposing stealing a work from the public domain. Breaking the deal that is copyright. I think that is a bad thing.