I'm an employee. Do I own the copyright to my own work?
Sounds like a silly question. Of course you own it - you are the author, right? However there is one important statutory exception under the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 1996 where it is stated that if a literary, artistic, dramatic or musical work or a film is created by an employee in the course of his employment, then the employer will be the first owner of copyright in the work.
If you were an employee and wanted to claim the copyright to your work you would have to take note of the following based on Ultra Marketing (UK) LImited and Thomas Alexander Scott v Universal Components Ltd :-
1. You must make sure that you don't spend time on the work during the working day or at the company's premises
2. The work you have created must not be related to the business of your employer
3. The work that you have created must not have been created when you were under the company payroll
4. The work must not be of the type that forms an integral part of what I was employed to do
Thus if you were hired as an engineer to work on improving the quality control of LCD panels in an assembly line, you would be able to make a stronger claim to any work you have produced if it was unconnected to LCD panels and if you worked on it during your free time outside work.
Sounds like a silly question. Of course you own it - you are the author, right? However there is one important statutory exception under the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 1996 where it is stated that if a literary, artistic, dramatic or musical work or a film is created by an employee in the course of his employment, then the employer will be the first owner of copyright in the work.
If you were an employee and wanted to claim the copyright to your work you would have to take note of the following based on Ultra Marketing (UK) LImited and Thomas Alexander Scott v Universal Components Ltd :-
1. You must make sure that you don't spend time on the work during the working day or at the company's premises
2. The work you have created must not be related to the business of your employer
3. The work that you have created must not have been created when you were under the company payroll
4. The work must not be of the type that forms an integral part of what I was employed to do
Thus if you were hired as an engineer to work on improving the quality control of LCD panels in an assembly line, you would be able to make a stronger claim to any work you have produced if it was unconnected to LCD panels and if you worked on it during your free time outside work.
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