[plug] Intellectual Property

[Jeremy Malcolm]

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> If you pay extra money to say the HSV team to design for you a
> special skirt or some other one-off that you want for your car,
> then you also own it and can do what you like with it - the
> exception being you cannot copy it no matter how much you paid for
> it, unless the contract explicity indicated you could.

That is too sweeping a statement.  If the contract doesn't say
anything, then there will be an implied term either that the person
commissioning the work *does* own the copyright or that he/she
*doesn't*.  In employment situations, it's quite easy.  With
contractors or consultants, it's not as clear-cut.  In some
circumstances, the person commissioning the work *will* own the
copyright.  This is not the case with photographs, because the
Copyright Act specifically provides that the copyright in a
photograph is owned by the photographer where a client commissions it
to be taken.  There is no such statutory presumption in respect of
computer programmers, so it is a good idea to have a written contract
that deals with this point specifically.

- -- 
Independent consulting solicitor* | _ .__ ._ _    |\/| _.| _ _ |._ _
and technology consultant.**    \_|(/_|(/_| | |\/ |  |(_||(_(_)|| | |
Personal site: http://malcolm.wattle.id.au     /   Finger for GPG key
* http://www.ilaw.com.au ** http://www.terminus.net.au jm at ilaw.com.au

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