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Work for Hire Agreements Do Not Provide Beneficial Copyright Ownership

By Judith Grubner
September 01, 2003

In order to sue for copyright infringement, it is necessary for the plaintiff to be either the legal or beneficial owner of the copyright in the infringed work. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has found that the creator of a work made for hire cannot be either a legal or beneficial owner of a copyright in such a work.

Richard Warren, the sole shareholder and employee of Triplet Music Enterprises, Inc., contracted with MTM Productions to compose music for the “Remington Steele” television program. Warren was required by a series of contracts to compose the music and MTM was to compensate Warren with a royalty percentage of all sales of broadcast rights to the television series made to third parties not affiliated with the performance rights companies BMI and ASCAP.

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