Copyright

OBWB's lawyers help clients identify, register, buy, sell, license, and enforce valuable copyrights relating to architectural designs, technical drawings, music, photography, literary works, computer software, and many other protected works. We represent copyright owners pursuing infringement cases on alternative fee bases, including contingent fee or hybrid fee arrangements, particularly in the area of architectural copyright litigation.  Our copyright clients range from individual artists and architects to multinational corporations.

In a legal area fraught with traps for the unwary, our copyright attorneys advise on the proper structuring of copyright assignments, employment agreements, and licensing agreements to ensure the effective conveyance of copyright ownership. Because many copyright infringement disputes arise out of routine business transactions, where a party failed to adequately investigate or address the copyright ownership or licensing implications before entering into the transaction, OBWB’s copyright lawyers help our clients identify, investigate, and address these potential problems during the business transaction process in order to avoid future litigation.

While we routinely handle registration of copyright claims, the registration process does not typically require “outside” counsel’s involvement.  For OBWB’s clients who routinely seek registration of large numbers of copyrighted works, we train their in-house staff to handle the copyright registration process within the company, developing and helping to implement company procedures that maximize available legal protection while minimizing the legal expense of copyright registration.