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Charlotte Waelde, In search of copyright author(s), Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice, Volume 3, Issue 2, February 2008, Pages 141–142, https://doi.org/10.1093/jiplp/jpm243
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Who should be considered the author of a work protected by copyright? In recent years, there has been an expanding critical literature examining notions of authorship and the role of the author in the creative process, often leading to suggestions for ways in which the copyright framework might be recalibrated to recognize collective effort. This book by Lior Zemer is an excellent addition to those works.
Eloquently written and skilfully referenced in the eight chapters that make up Zemer's book, its key aim is to persuade the reader that the individual and the public should be seen as joint authors of creative works. In making his arguments, he takes us from a Conceptual Challenge (Chapter 2) to a blueprint for Just Copyright (Chapter 8), investigating the nature of copyright, the notion of authorial collectivity, the reconstruction of the copyright moment, and Lockean copyright along the way.
Zemer sets out his stall early on. His argument is one which has as its focus a ‘public property right in copyright entities’ through ‘emphasising the sociality of copyright creation and the role and contribution of the public to the creation of every copyright work’.1 Where Zemer takes us further than we have perhaps been taken before is in his argument that ‘copyright works should be jointly owned between public and authors’.2 This is a tough challenge particularly considering the incidents of joint ownership. Zemer makes a noble attempt to meet this challenge.
