The author and the copyright owner are not always the same person
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Employees, freelancers and co-authors — three situations that separate creator from owner, and the contract clauses you need.
The author is the person who actually created the work. The copyright owner holds the economic rights. The two coincide in the simplest case — you write a book for yourself — but separate in most commercial situations.
Case 1 — Works created by employees
Where a work is created in the course of assigned duties, the economic rights belong to the assigning organisation unless otherwise agreed. The person who created it remains the author and keeps the moral rights.
The practical problem is evidence, not the rule. Many businesses have no specific assignment documentation, only a generic employment contract. When a developer leaves and claims the code was written outside working hours, the employer struggles at the first hurdle: proving the work arose "in the course of assigned duties".
Cheap, effective prevention: put an IP clause in the employment contract; keep written assignment records per project, even a scoping email; and for core creative roles, add undertakings to hand over source files and accounts on exit.
Case 2 — Commissioned works
When you hire a freelancer or an agency, the economic rights belong to the commissioning party unless otherwise agreed — and that phrase is exactly where the trouble starts, because most freelance contracts say nothing about IP at all.
When the contract is silent you may hold only a right to use the work for the agreed purpose, not ownership. The designer may resell a similar design elsewhere. And when you go to register a trademark for that logo, you find you have no paperwork proving your title.
A three-line clause solves all of it: an assignment of the economic rights on full payment, an undertaking to hand over source files and not to reuse or resell the work or close variants, and a warranty of non-infringement.
Case 3 — Joint authorship
Where several people create a work together they are co-authors. If the work has separable parts capable of independent use, each holds rights in their own part. If it is inseparable, exploitation requires agreement.
On terms: for jointly authored works under the life-plus-50 rule, the term runs from the death of the last surviving co-author. A work with a young co-author is therefore protected considerably longer.
Quick reference
Across every scenario — solo creation, employment, commission with or without an assignment clause, joint authorship, or a signed assignment — the author column never changes by contract. That is what moral rights mean.