A question about group copyrighting...

[Alex Foster]

Hello,
I have a question about copyrighting a collection of
noncopyrighted short stories/poetry. The group that I am working
with are wondering what if any rights the author holds on their
work that has been copyrighted as a collection. Any information
you can provide is appreciated, thank you.

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[Harry Hillman Chartrand]

As I understand it and recognizing that the particulars can and do vary
jurisdiction to jurisdiction, this is the situation:

(a) the individual works carry their own copyright; and,
(b) the 'collection' or 'compilation' carries its own copyright.

There are, in effect, two separate works - the individual pieces and the
collection of those pieces. In relative terms, the copyright for the
individual works is 'stronger' - e.g. life of artist plus - while the
copyright for the collection is usually set for a specific timeframe (that
can and does vary).

Hope this helps.

[AW]

As I understand it this largely depends on the contract between the various
authors and the copyright holder of the compilation. So how that works out
is up to you and them to work out, and then get a lawyer (or not) to make
sure your contract says what you meant it to say.

Alex Foster <af451N...@worldnet.att.net.invalid> wrote in message
news:0ab805ec...@usw-ex0104-032.remarq.com...