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Subject: Re: Contract vs. Commission

Author: Slater Wold

Date: 20:54:15 05/03/02

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On May 03, 2002 at 23:45:22, Jeremiah Penery wrote:

>This seems to be an issue of contracting a work vs. commissioning a work.  In
>general, an author under contract to write "one or more books" without
>guidelines retains copyright on those books, while an author who is commissioned
>to write a specific book, with some guidelines, does not retain copyright.  I'm
>sure this can be altered by the specific contract between the two parties.
>
>Unfortunately, it can be difficult to define "commissioned work" accurately.
>Textbooks and reference books are mostly commissioned works, most other books
>aren't.  Is the Rebel book a commissioned work, or simply a contracted one?
>Maybe that's the important question here.

Let me reinterate:

"Although the general rule is that the person who creates the work is its
author, there is an exception to that principle; the exception is a work made
for hire, which is a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her
employment; or a work specially ordered or commissioned in certain specified
circumstances. When a work qualifies as a work made for hire, the employer or
commissioning party is considered to be the author."

The key being "..or a work specially ordered or commissioned.."

Specially ordered work is contract work.

Commissioned work is commissioned work.

Bottom line, if Ed and Christophe approached Noomen and asked for a book, in
return for money, the book belongs to them.  While I am not 100% certain they
did, my guess would be this is what happened.  I am 100% certain Noomen HAS been
compensated for his work.

Besides, I was just making the point, it is a VERY real possibility that the
book doesn't even belong to Noomen.



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