If you guys are interested in reading more about joint works, this is a great read. You really have to study it, but it should help solidify in theory in your mind where joint works comes from and how really complicated the whole thing is. It's complicated because a lot of the application of the law regarding joint works is a patchwork of court cases:

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/metaschool/fisher/joint/links/articles/lape.html#ancho r4400920

Again, I am not offering advice, nothing I type should be relied upon in decision making, and in any specific instance (such as a question about should you post a lyric on the internet) you should seek a qualified legal opinion. The reason I looked the above up was to give substance to what I thought to be true. This is in regards to something ECA said.

In order to have a joint work, the general rule is the authors of the joint work have to intend that they become co-authors, co-owners of the work. I say general rule, because in a specific instance/case that may not be true. There seems to not be complete consensus about that general rule being the correct view of the law. Anyhow, taken from the above link:

"Courts have narrowed the scope of joint work doctrine by: 1) requiring intent on the part of the creators of a work that they be joint authors and joint owners, rather than simply intent that their contributions be merged; and 2) requiring that each joint author make a copyrightable, or even more than a copyrightable, contribution."

There is a difference between creating a work that intends to be merged with another work (I.E. writing lyrics that intend to have a melody added at some point), and intent to merge those lyrics with a specific melody writer whereas you share billing/ownership in the unified work as co-writers.

So (keeping in mind this is a generality, and a specific case may be viewed by a court differently), if you simply post a lyric on the internet (without soliciting for or appearing to solicite a co-writer), and somebody comes by and without your knowledge and permission creates a melody to the lyrics, that probably isn't going to be considered by a court as a joint work. Your lyrics probably can't be hi-jacked that way. But again, that's a *probably*. Study the above linked article and you will see why I say *probably*.

Posting a lyric on the internet, to me, is not completely a zero risk venture anyway. If you post and ask for critiques, and you change a line in the lyric to what someone suggested, is the suggestion maker now a co-writer? Some of the court rulings as far as joint works seem to protect against that outcome, as far as requiring a copyrightable contribution, intent to be joint authors, etc., but in a specific case, who knows?



[This message has been edited by Liszt Laughing (edited 12-19-2005).]

Boo...my name is Doug