[RQ-Rules] Re: New RQ

[Peter Brink]

Nick.Middleton at invensys.com skrev:
>>>And I didn't get a penny because it was a work for hire for Chaosium.
>>>
>>
>>Thankfully we don't have anything like "work for hire" in European
>>Copyright law...
> 
> 
> I realise this is largely off topic Peter, but that surprises me, since
> "work for hire" is basically a contract of employment that includes a
> clause to the effect that original forms of expression created whilst in
> that employ belong to the employer, not the employee - hence Newspaper copy
> would (under these terms) belong to the newspaper, not the individual
> journalist.
> 
> Indeed, my impression form various conversations over the years about Games
> Workshop (*spit*) was that they had used exactly those sorts of terms (and
> I thought still did), hence  a lot of GW RPG material being inaccessible
> for reprinting these days without GW's cooperation. But I am anything BUT
> an expert...
> 

Well, Ireland and the UK *are* the odd men in a European Copyright 
context. :-) The general rule in Europe (and to large extent the rest of 
the world) is that a copyright belongs to the one who created the 
copyrightable work. Employment does not imply the the employer becomes 
the copyright holder of work created by employees. The employer does 
have an implied (near) exclusive license to use the work, the extent of 
which is (usually) regulated by the employment contract.

There is a general copyright principle called the "specification rule" 
stating that a contract dealing with a transfer or assignment of a 
copyright only covers those rights specifically mentioned. If an 
employee creates a work as a part of his job but outside his normal 
sphere of duties then the employer has no implied license to use that 
work. For example, assume that I write a song for use at a company 
happening, and my regular job is to write computer software, then the 
employer may not use my song in, for example, his marketing, without 
asking for my for permission. I would also (of course) have the right to 
ask for a license fee, a right which might be a bit tricky to use in 
many cases. There are however talks about legislation in a few European 
countries which would make it more difficult for an employer to (ab)use 
his power in such situations.

In the UK and the US that line of reasoning would not hold true. In the 
UK (as in the US) the rule is that the employer becomes the copyright 
holder of any works created by his employees.

/Peter