Intellectual Property & Copyright

Aelfric

Hypothetical situation:

An employee of an Irish-registered company produces a technical report as part of their work. As such, the IP belongs to the employee, but the copyright rests with the employer - Correct so far?

The employer was carrying out work on behalf of a semi-state. i.e. the semi-state employed the employer to undertake work for them.

Now a few years later, let's say 3 for sake of argument, Hypothetical Ltd. has been liquidated.

My question is, who now owns the copyright to the material produced by the employee for the now-defunct employer?

Paulw

The copyright would rest with the liquidator (or whoever they sold it off to). Otherwise, it will remain with the original company for another 70 years, before it expires.

Copyright is for the life of the owner plus 70 years.

Aelfric

Hmm, interesting. So the semi-state couldn't then publish any material based on the work without the express permission of the copyright holder - hypothetically? Thanks for the info

Fat Ronaldo

If the semi-state commissioned the company specifically to create the content, then it might depend on the agreement between them. However, unless it had been expressly agreed that the copyright would be held by the semi-state, the author would be the owner. As Paulw said, the author would be the employer and the liquidator or subsequent purchaser would hold the copyright.

The employee owns nothing, unless something to the contrary is agreed. There's no distinction between the IP and the copyright.

GerardKeating

Aelfric wrote: »

Hypothetical situation:

An employee of an Irish-registered company produces a technical report as part of their work. As such, the IP belongs to the employee, but the copyright rests with the employer - Correct so far?

Nope, the employee was paid for the work, everything belongs to the employer.

Aelfric wrote: »

The employer was carrying out work on behalf of a semi-state. i.e. the semi-state employed the employer to undertake work for them.

Now a few years later, let's say 3 for sake of argument, Hypothetical Ltd. has been liquidated.

My question is, who now owns the copyright to the material produced by the employee for the now-defunct employer? [/QUOTE]

The client whom commission the work would (depending of the terms of the contract) may have a licence for the work and if they were sensible got the copyright as part of the terms of the contract.

If the did not, and copyright was still with the company which it liquidated, the liquidator would take possession of the assets of the company and may sell them to pay creditors. At the end of the liquidation process, if they have not specifically been disposed of, they kind of enter a legal limbo, the liquidator move on and none is left to handle it.

This happened for a lot of movies and tv show from the past, the holders of the original copyright dod not exist any more and ownership cannot no longer be traced.