You Can Transfer A Copyright Without Saying ‘Copyright'

You may think there is one simple hard-and-fast rule of copyright law: You cannot transfer a copyright without a written instrument signed by the copyright owner. It's right there in section 204 of the Copyright Act.

But writings and signatures today can be electronic, and as a recent case illustrates, the "instrument" need not be a formal document that specifically addresses copyrights. As a result, in copyright litigation, defendants often use discovery to intensely scrutinize the basic issue of who owns the copyright in question.

In Johnson v. Storix, for example, the issue was whether Anthony Johnson had transferred the copyright in a software program to a company, Storix, Inc. Johnson had developed the program as a sole proprietor and eventually sold business assets to Storix. But copyrights were never specifically mentioned. He continued to work for Storix after the sale, but eventually left after conflicts developed.