- Copyright Term. The copyright in a work made for hire expires ninety-five years from the year of publication or one hundred twenty years from the year of creation (whichever is shorter). 17 U.S.C. § 302(c).
- Copyright Ownership. The copyright in a work made for hire initially belongs to the employer or the party that ordered or commissioned the work (rather than the individual who actually created the work). In other words, if the work was created by an employee acting within the scope of his or her employment, the employer owns the copyright in that work (not the employee). If the work was specially ordered or commissioned as a work made for hire, the person or organization that ordered or commissioned owns the copyright in that work (rather than the individual who actually created the work). 17 U.S.C. § 201(b).
- Termination. Under certain circumstances, an author or his or her heirs may terminate an exclusive or nonexclusive transfer or license of the copyright in the author’s work by exercising the author’s right to terminate a grant under Sections 203, 304(c), and 304(d) of the Copyright Act. However, these termination provisions do not apply to grants involving the copyright in a work made for hire. For a general discussion of termination, see Chapter 2300, Section 2310.
507 Derivative Works
This Section provides the definition and a general discussion concerning derivative works. For information concerning the Office’s practices and procedures for evaluating the copyrightability of derivative works, see Chapter 300, Section 311. For guidance in completing an application to register a derivative work, see Chapter 600, Sections 613.6, 617.5, 618.5, 620.7, and 621.
507.1 What Is a Derivative Work?
The Copyright Act defines a derivative work as “a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgement, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted.” The statute also states that “[a] work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications, which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a ‘derivative work.’” 17 U.S.C. § 101.
Creating a derivative work requires “a process of recasting, transforming, or adapting ‘one or more preexisting works.’” H.R. Rep. No. 94-1476 at 57, reprinted in 1976 U.S.C.C.A.N. 5659, 5670; S. Rep. No. 94-473 at 55. Thus, derivative works contain two distinct forms of authorship:
- The authorship in the preexisting work(s) that has been recast, transformed, or adapted within the derivative work, and
- The new authorship involved in recasting, transforming, or adapting the preexisting work(s).
