Page:Copyright Office Compendium 3rd Edition - Full.djvu/388

, Third Edition 708&emsp;Joint Works

A “” is a work “prepared by two or more authors with the intention that their contributions be merged into inseparable or interdependent parts of a unitary whole.” 17 U.S.C. § 101. A joint work may be registered as a nondramatic literary work if it contains a sufficient amount of literary expression. Examples of works that may satisfy this requirement include essays, articles, textbooks, reference works, children’s books, graphic novels, or any other work that may be jointly prepared by two or more authors.

Ordinarily, each author owns the copyright in the authorship that he or she contributed to the work. In the case of a joint work, all of the authors jointly own the copyright in each other’s contributions and each author owns an undivided interest in the copyright for the work as a whole. See 17 U.S.C. § 201(a).

When asserting a in a joint work, the  should provide the name of each author who contributed  authorship to the work and should provide specific authorship statements for each author. When completing an online application, the authorship information should be provided in the Author Created field, and if applicable, also in the New Material Included field. When completing a paper application on, this information should be provided in space 2, and if applicable, also in space 6(b). For guidance on completing these portions of the application, see and. In addition, the applicant should provide the name of the who owns the copyright in that material. For guidance on completing this portion of the application, see.

For a general discussion of joint works, see.

709&emsp;Derivative Literary Works

A derivative literary work is a work that is based upon one or more preexisting works, regardless of whether the preexisting work is a literary work, a work of the performing arts, a a pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work, or any other type of work. Typically, a derivative literary work is a new version of a preexisting work or a work that contains new material combined with material that has been recast, transformed, or adapted from a preexisting work. See 17 U.S.C. § 101 (definition of “”).

A derivative literary work may be registered with the U.S. Copyright Office if the author contributed a sufficient amount of new authorship to the work. Making trivial changes or additions to a preexisting work does not satisfy this requirement. See Alfred Bell & Co. v. Catalda Fine Arts, Inc., 191 F.2d 99, 103 (2d Cir. 1951). Examples of nondramatic literary works that may be registered as a derivative work include, fictionalizations, abridgements, editorial revisions, and a wide range of other works such as:

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 * A short story based on a preexisting poem.
 * A children’s book featuring copyrightable characters from a preexisting children’s book.