(OTOH if they’re smart enough to lurk here …)

Also, as I think has been alluded to but without details, Anka and Jackson may well have had a contractual arrangement from their joint songwriting that modified the minimum obligations under copyright (e.g. that required attribution or consent of both or whatever).

In Canada, subsection 14.1(1) of the Copyright Act reads (in part) “The author of a work has…the right, where reasonable in the circumstances, to be associated with the work as its author by name….”

Isn’t the reason Anka was complaining was that, until he spoke up, the Jackson estate was proceeding as though Jackson was the 100% owner of the composition “This is it”? Until Anka went public with his claim about “I never Heard,” the estate did not acknowledge that Anka was a joint author, and presumably intended to keep all of the “This is it” publishing revenue. You are, of course, correct that if Jackson and Anka were joint authors, either one of them (or their successors) has the right to issue licenses, with only the obligation to account to each other.

What’s this?? I agree with Brett. Amazing.

So the whole thing was pretty strange – he was getting everything he was entitled to under the law, and not getting something he wanted but which he was not entitled to.

Someone from the entertainment industry behaving strangely? Quelle surprise!!

So the whole thing was pretty strange – he was getting everything he was entitled to under the law, and not getting something he wanted but which he was not entitled to.

It’s not all that strange once you realize the operative phrase is, “entitled to under the law“, not, “entitled to”. The co-author of a work is, of course, morally entitled to attribution, no matter what the law might happen to say. And people are not required to conform their moral sentiments to the law. He was perfectly justified in being pissed off about the lack of attribution.

Thus, if nobody had spoken up, all of the songwriter’s royalties would have been paid to the Jackson estate, rather than 50% to the Jackson estate and 50% to Anka.

I can’t help but wonder how careful the Jackson estate was about reviewing the tapes Jackson left behind. Michael Jackson wrote many songs, but he also recorded many songs by other songwriters. The fact that he made a tape of himself singing an otherwise unknown song does not necessarily mean that he wrote the song.

The short answer to your answer is that the law of jointly owned copyrights just doesn’t work like that. As case law has developed, the scope of that right means that each owner may grant a non-exclusive license to the work to others without the permission of the other co-owner, though the licensing co-owner is entitled to an accounting of profits where he will receive 50% of all of the money earned from the licensing agreement.

So in your example, the exclusive license to the company you own WOULD require the consent of the co-author, but not a non-exclusive license at the same rate. This is a risk of being a co-author. If your other author makes bad business deals, you’re stuck with it. Choose your co-authors wisely or modify the standard rules of joint authorship by contract.

Jackson’s estate, as co-owner of the copyright, is perfectly within its rights to license the distribution of the song, with or without Anka’s permission or even his knowledge – that’s what copyright co-ownership entitles you to.

It does!? That is quite surprising. Wouldn’t both 50%-each co-owners need to sign off on any license, just like selling or renting out a co-owned piece of real estate? If not, let’s say that you and I co-write a song. What stops me from licensing it to myself exclusively—or to a company I wholly own—for 1¢ per zillion copies distributed?

I know there are statutory compulsory licenses, where you can record anyone else’s song for something like 9.1¢ per copy manufactured, but in that case the co-ownership seems irrelevant. Maybe this is where the issue of songwriting credit comes in?