The law of Copyright says that an author is the person who creates a piece of authorship and is, as a minimum the primary example, the sole owner of the work. Despite the fact that the writer can also first of all have sole ownership of the work there are numerous methods by way of which the publisher may also attain ownership rights in the writer's innovative efforts. Two of the maximum regularly used are through the "work made for rent" doctrine - the publisher will own the copyright and "all" rights in the creative work-, and by an "project" of rights from the writer to the publisher - the writer especially offers "all or some" of the rights in the work to the writer. While multiple individual is concerned within the authorship method the identification of the authors, and the "rights and responsibilities" of the authors won't be so obvious. The "joint authorship" doctrine includes a "sharing" of rights, despite the fact that hopefully, specifically if the writer is a co-creator; it is a planned sharing of rights and not an inadvertent loss of the writer's entire ownership of rights in the work of authorship.

The Copyright act presents for joint authorship when a piece is ready through more than one author "with the goal that their contributions be merged into inseparable or interdependent parts of a unitary entire". If joint authorship exists, the authors of the "joint work" will be identified as the co-proprietors of the copyright in that work.

The rights and responsibilities of a co-author:

If the work qualifies underneath the regulation of Copyright as a work of joint authorship the co-authors or collaborators can also allocate the rights and responsibilities of the work of authorship amongst themselves. However, given that no formal agreement is needed between the co-authors or collaborators a prison relationship of joint authorship can also arise even without the cause of the respective authors to create a work of joint authorship. Consequently, if no joint authorship agreement has been formalized it is going to be presumed that the following standards shall follow.

1. Each co-writer will own a same ownership proportion within the work. This can occur despite the fact that one of the co-authors has contributed a more quantity of the work than the alternative co-authors.
2. Each co-author will very own an "undivided" hobby within the complete work. Which means if the publishing challenge consists of illustrations and textual content that the artist and the writer will every own fifty percentage of the complete work, i.e., the artwork and the text.
3. Any co-author, without the permission in their fellow co-authors, can also provide non-specific rights to the work to other parties. However, a co-writer can also most effective supply special rights to the work to other parties if the co-writer obtains the prior consent of the opposite co-authors.
4. Every co-writer has a duty to account to the alternative co-authors for any income received from the exploitation of the work.
5. A co-writer has the right to assign his/her possession proportion within the work to a 3rd party or to bequeath his/her possession proportion to his/her heirs.
6. Every co-writer will be entitled to equal authorship credit for the work upon its booklet.