"Of course I do," you say, "it's mine".
But is it really? Did you or one of your employees create it? The
chances are that it was created for you by an outsider, quite
possibly by a design or branding agency. An agency that you
instructed and paid. But that doesn't necessarily mean
that you own the copyright of the logo. A number of companies have
come to realise this over the years.
Copyright law's a bit odd when it comes to what we refer to
as "commissioned works". In South Africa, for example,
section 21 (1)(c) of the Copyright Act provides that where one
party commissions another party to create a work, the copyright
belongs to the party that commissions the work if it pays or agrees
to pay for the work, but only in the case of very specific works.
These works are photographs, portraits, gravures, sound recordings
and films.
