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COPYRIGHT IN WORKS FOR HIRE
It is common in commercial practice for a pro-prietor to commission a company or a profes-sional to complete a certain creative work in accordance with the proprietor's requirements and for the proprietor's use. The Copyright Act provides that the authorship of a commissioned work, and the ownership of the economic rights therein, may be fixed by agreement between the parties concerned. If no agreement exists, the commissioned party shall be the author and en-joy economic rights in the work, but the com-missioning party shall have the right to use the work. Therefore it is advisable that the commis-sioning contract should, as far as possible, ex-pressly define which party is the author of the work and which party owns the economic rights in the work.
But it should be noted that, as stated in a recent interpretation issued by the Intellectual Property Office, only if the commissioned party is a natural person may an agreement be made pur-suant to the Copyright Act to fix the authorship and ownership of economic rights. If the com-missioned party is a corporate entity, then the authorship and the ownership of economic rights should be determined according to the Act's provisions regarding authorship in the course of employment, and the commissioning party can-not acquire rights in the work concerned pursu-ant to the Copyright Act.