Development of Creative Commons licenses

[rob AT robmyers.org]

Quoting Daniel <dbuckles AT sympatico.ca>:

> It is not clear to me what distinctions to make between author and copyright
> holder, especially when there are multiple authors.

I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, you really should ask a lawyer.
Hopefully list members will point out where I'm wrong here. :-)

If I write a poem and pop it on my web site I am author and rights holder.

If I am paid by a company to write a poem, and assign copyright in return for
payment, I am the author but not the rightsholder.

If I am employed by a company to write poems, am not the author or the
rightsholder (if this is a bad example think of the end credits of a 
film: made
by hundreds of people but with a film company named as the "author").

In the first case, I can CC the poem. In the second and third cases, I cannot,
the company must.

> It is possible and
> advisable to include all authors as copyright holders?

In a joint work the authors have joint copyright IIRC.

> [...]
> What are good practices in this regard, and what are the
> options/implications of multiple copyright holders?

I think only copyright holders can defend copyright infringement. So this is
more difficult with multiple authors.

> Are all authors
> automatically copyright holders, and should their names appear as such (in
> addition to being included as part of the citation).

It depends on the project but if it is an open collaboration I think all the
contributors are copyright holders. Canadian law may be different from English
law on this though. :-)

> Creative Commons sight
> seems to assume a single copyright holder, with attribution to multiple
> authors.

I don't think CC do assume this. The licenses mention both copyright 
holder and
author as these may be separate legal entities.

- Rob.