>> Yes, if the code is written whilst being employed by a
 >> company (ie they have the copyright), does the work become PD
 >> 50 years after the death of the original employee who wrote
 >> it, or 50 years after the company folds?  BFN.

 dn> Who owns title (ie the copyright)? Surely you can figure even this out for
 dn> yourself.

???

Well first of all, does the contract that you sign really mean that you are
continually transferring your rights to the code to the employer?  What if
it was a fixed price contract to produce some code?  Well let's say that
because I write the code, I nominally own the rights to it, for a short
time before the company owns it.  Then they are bound by when I die?  Or
does the 50 years get transferred to them?  Say I'm 95 and I write some
code, but I want my family to benefit, so I sign an agreement with my 5
year old great-grandson, handing over all rights to him.  That should mean
that the copyright persists for more like 145 years rather than 55 years. 
Well done!

Now let's say instead that the company owns the copyright right from the
start. Well what if the company never folds?  Does the work stay
copyrighted forever? What if the company merges with another?  What if it
is taken over? What if it goes bankrupt, but even so, the bits are normally
sold off, all the source code and copyright.  So now do we have to wait for
that company to go bankrupt? BFN.

Paul

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