Copyright and Collective Authorship

Addresses the difficult question of how to determine the authorship, and ownership, of copyright in highly collaborative works.

Simone argues that a recalibration of copyright law is necessary and proposes an inclusive and contextual approach to joint authorship that is true to the legal concept of authorship but is also more aligned with creative reality.As technology makes it easier for people to work together, large-scale collaboration is becoming increasingly prevalent. In this context, the question of how to determine authorship – and hence ownership - of copyright in collaborative works is an important question to which current copyright law fails to provide a coherent or consistent answer. In Copyright and Collective Authorship, Daniela Simone engages with the problem of how to determine the authorship of highly collaborative works. Employing insights from the ways in which collaborators understand and regulate issues of authorship, the book argues that a recalibration of copyright law is necessary, proposing an inclusive and contextual approach to joint authorship that is true to the legal concept of authorship but is also more aligned with creative reality.