Cite as 450 F.Supp. 59 (1978)
considered ‘authors,’ under section 26 accounted for the authorship of all of the various contributions. However, the Plaintiffs have refused to investigate the facts surrounding the authorship of these works sufficiently so as to enable them to proceed in this manner. Instead they have elected to pursue this litigation.”
This is a clear concession that a composite work may consist entirely of contributions made for hire, at least where there were several different corporate employers-for-hire, as there were for many if not all of the publications here involved.
Plaintiffs’ reluctance to undertake the extensive research necessary to enable them to represent that more than one corporate employer was responsible for the contributions to each of the publications is understandable, particularly when the problem could be resolved by the mere payment of a second $4.00 (or $6.00) renewal fee.
The reasoning employed in the opinion of the Attorney General in reaching the conclusion that the terms “composite work” and “work made for hire” are inconsistent—that in the latter case the proprietor has the right of renewal while in the former the author has—is really a non sequitur.
As noted above, when the terms are accorded their ordinary meaning, a “composite work” can be a “work made for hire” provided all of the distinguishable contributions were made by employees of the publisher. In that case the proprietor would have all the renewal rights and the authors (in the colloquial sense) and their successors would have none. On the other hand, if the “composite work” includes the contributions of both employees and non-employees, the proprietor would have renewal rights to all portions of the whole except the identifiable contributions of non-employees, as to which the authors or their successors would have the renewal rights, at least if the copyright thereon had been separately registered.[1] There is no apparent inconsistency in this construction.
Defendants further argue that because the term “composite work” is defined in their Compendium of Copyright Practice to exclude a compilation of the works of a single author, and because 17 U.S.C. § 26 provides that “… the word ‘author’ shall include an employer in the case of works made for hire,” a collection of works made for hire for a single employer cannot be a composite work.
However, like Judge Learned Hand in Shapiro, Bernstein & Co. v. Bryan, supra, 123 F.2d at 699, we “cannot see” that the definition of “author” in Section 26 has anything to do with the construction of the first proviso in Section 24, “because the word does not appear in it.”
Moreover, the Compendium expressly states at page 11–16 that
“The term ‘author,’ for renewal purposes, refers to the individual who personally wrote or created ‘renewable matter,’ in the work. ****** “The term ‘author’ does not include employers for hire, publishers * * * or any other impersonal entity.”
For all the reasons stated, the Court concludes that the terms “composite works” and “works made for hire” are not inconsistent. The Court therefore need not consider the question whether defendants have the authority to reject an application containing inconsistent statements. Suffice it merely to say that defendants’ conclusion that they must reject plaintiffs’ renewal applications because of the prima facie presumption of validity and of the facts recited in a registration appears unjustified in view of the statement in Epoch Producing Corp. v. Killiam Shows, Inc., 522 F.2d 737 (2d Cir. 1975), cert. denied, 424 U.S. 955, 96 S.Ct. 1429, 47 L.Ed.2d 360 (1976), that certificates of renewal, unlike original registrations, are not accorded prima facie effect.
It is undisputed that the Copyright Office has neither the facilities nor the authority to rule upon the factual basis of applications for registration or renewal, and
- ↑ See note 5, supra.
