Book Launch: Copyright and Collective Authorship - Dr Daniela Simone

UCL Laws Institute of Brand and Innovation Law (IBIL) is pleased to host the launch of Dr Daniela Simone’s new book Copyright and Collective Authorship: Locating the Authors of Collaborative Work, published by Cambridge University Press. 

The launch will be chaired by The Rt Hon Professor Sir Robin Jacob and involve a panel discussion of the book with:
•    Professor Tanya Aplin, King’s College London
•    Professor Séverine Dusollier, SciencesPo Paris

About the book

As technology makes it easier for people to work together, large-scale collaboration is becoming increasingly prevalent. Although it is vital to identify who are the authors of collaborative work, current copyright law fails to provide a coherent or consistent answer.

The book engages with the problem of how authorship of highly collaborative works should be determined. The book undertakes a thorough doctrinal and theoretical analysis of the concepts of authorship and joint authorship under UK law before considering four case studies – Wikipedia, Australian Indigenous art, scientific collaborations and film. Using these examples, the book shows how copyright could be recalibrated to better assign authorship in the case of collaborative works by considering social norms and the specific context of the work’s creation. The book argues for an inclusive approach that is both true to the legal concept of authorship and also more aligned with creative reality.

About the author

Dr Daniela Simone is a Lecturer in Law and a Co-Director of UCL’s Institute of Brand and Innovation Law. She specialises in intellectual property law and copyright law in particular. Dr Simone received her DPhil from the University of Oxford, having also obtained an MPhil and a BCL. Before moving to the UK, she completed her undergraduate studies (BA (English and French) and LLB (Hons I)) at the University of Sydney, then working as a graduate lawyer at Ashurst’s Sydney office, being admitted to legal practice at the Supreme Court of NSW (Australia).

Watch the video of this talk