Why it Matters Under Copyright Law Whether a Collaboration is a Joint or Composite Work
Why it Matters Under Copyright Law Whether a Collaboration is a Joint or Composite Work
The song Take Me Home, Country Roads draws up images of rural West Virginia. The song has become so deeply associated with that state that in 2014, the West Virginia Legislature designated it an official state song. However, the song’s origin has no connection to West Virginia. Its roots are actually in Montgomery County, Maryland, not far from where I live.
Husband-wife songwriting team Bill Danoff and Taffy Nivert were driving on Clopper Road in Montgomery County when they decided to write a song about a road through a wooded area. Known as State Route 117, Clopper Road, which originally was a Native American trail through a mostly wooded area, only about 12-1/2 miles from I-270 in Gaithersburg, a suburb of Washington, DC, through Seneca Creek State Park, and ends around Dawsonville, Maryland. It’s not the hundreds of miles of open highway curving through the mountains that one thinks of when hearing the song.
The song became associated with West Virginia for a practical reason. When the songwriters got to the point in the song where they described where they were driving, Maryland, with three syllables, didn’t fit with the music. So, after rejecting “Massachusetts,” they settled on another four-syllable state, “West Virginia.”
John Denver entered the picture after a performance at the Cellar Door, a club in Georgetown, where Danoff and Nivert were opening for him. After the show, the three went back to Danoff and Nivert’s apartment, stayed up late, and finished the song together. The next night, Denver performed the song for the first time at the Cellar Door.
Since Danoff, Nivert, and Denver worked together to create the song, it is considered a joint work under copyright law. This contrasts with a composite work, where the music and lyrics are written separately without the intention of creating a single work. This article discusses joint works and composite works and why that distinction is important under copyright law.
What is a Joint Work?
Under copyright law, a joint work is “a work prepared by two or more authors with the intention that their contributions be merged into inseparable or interdependent parts of a unitary whole.” So, joint work will
· have two or more authors,
· with each author contributing original expression, and
· At the time the work was created, the authors intended that their contributions would be combined into a single work.
The authors don’t have to create the same type of original expression. For instance, it’s common for one author to write lyrics and another to write music. However, the elements of the work are “inseparable or interdependent.” For instance, in Take Me Home, Country Roads, the lyrics and the melody are distinct, but each is designed to work with the other.
Distinguishing a Joint Work from a Composite Work
A song created by multiple authors can be either a joint work or a composite work under copyright law. Unlike a joint work, which is a single work, a composite work is the combination of two independent artistic expressions into a single work.
When new lyrics are written for an existing musical composition, that’s a composite work. Other examples include a literary magazine, where several authors provide content, and an editor combines them into the magazine.
While those examples involve combinations of works written at different times, a composite work also could consist of two works created at the same time if the authors didn’t intend for them to be combined into a single work. So, a song could be a composite work where different individuals wrote the lyrics and music at the same time if those individuals didn't intend to create a joint work.
Often, what distinguishes a composite work from a joint work is the authors' intent. If a lyricist and composer create original expression without the intention of creating a single creative work, it will be a composite work. However, if instead they intend to create a single creative work, it will be a joint work.
Why Does it Matter if Something is a Joint or Composite Work?
Under copyright law, joint work is a single creative work having its own copyright. On the other hand, the individual contributions to composite work are distinct and separate works, each having its own copyright. So, with composite work, each author has copyright to their part of the composite work and can assign or license it as they see fit.
This distinction has legal implications regarding copyright licensing. To use composite work, someone needs to obtain a license to use each part of the composite work. However, for joint work, there is only one copyright, so only one license is necessary.
Since each author in a composite work has a separate copyright, each of them has control over the licensing of their part of the work. Sometimes a single party owns all of the copyrights to a composite work, for instance, if both a lyricist and composer assign their copyrights to a single publisher. However, if two or more parties’ own copyrights to portions of the composite work, licensing can be more complicated.
The licensing implications don’t end with the number of licenses, however. They also affect the authors’ rights.
While each author of a composite work has their own copyright, each author of a joint work owns an undivided interest in joint work. Unless the authors of the joint work have a contract that says otherwise, their interests will be equal. Suppose three songwriters work together, with two providing most of the artistic contribution and one contributing only a tiny part, absent a contract to the contrary, they all will receive the same percentage of income from the copyright.
However, although any of the authors of joint work can license the entire work, they need to share the license fee and royalties with the other authors. Using Take Me Home, Country Roads as an example, Danoff could have granted other singers rights to use the song, and John Denver could have done nothing about it, as long as he received his share of the royalties.
Copyright termination also is a little bit different for composite and joint works. The termination date for copyrights generally is 70 years after the death of the author. For a composite work, each part of the work could have a different termination date. But for a joint work, the termination date will be 70 years after the death of the last surviving author. So, heirs of an author who dies earlier will benefit from royalties for more than 70 years.
Copyright law also allows authors to terminate a copyright grant at certain points in time. For a composite work, since there are two copyrights, each author can terminate their own grant of copyright independent of the other.
The same isn’t true for joint work, which requires a majority of the authors' approval to terminate the grant. Suppose the songwriters had granted a copyright in Take Me Home, Country Roads to a third party. John Denver wouldn’t have been able to terminate that grant by himself, since he was only one of three songwriters. But if Danoff and Nivert wanted to terminate the grant, they could have done so without Denver’s approval.
Conclusion
During a collaboration, songwriters may get caught up in the creative process and not consider the legal implications of their work. However, it’s important to decide up front whether they intend to create a joint work or collaborative work and hire an attorney to document their intentions.
© 2025 by Elizabeth A. Whitman
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