Who owns the copyright of a subject?

Answer 1

The owner of a copyright is the individual or organization to which the bundle of exclusive rights is ascribed. It is generally the creator of a work, from a single artist to a corporation, but rights may be transferred through agreements or inheritance.

Answer 2

Because creating derivative works (or authorizing others to do so) is one of the exclusive rights of the creator of the original work, anyone else wishing to create a derivative work would needs permission from them, which would spell out where rights in the new work are assigned.

For example, to make a musical arrangement of a song, you would need permission from the copyright holder, and the ensuing agreement would very likely include that it is a work-made-for-hire (that is, the original rightsholder retains rights over the new arrangement).

Answer 3

That depends on who owns it.

The original holder of copyright is the author of the work (in some cases, a company, rather than a specific person, may be considered the author... the people who created it agree ahead of time to transfer their rights to the company. This is particularly common for things like motion pictures, where the work is the end result of the effort of a lot of people).

The copyright holder may then sell or transfer the interest to someone else, who becomes the new owner of the copyright.

Answer 4

Copyright protects expressions: writing, art, music, etc.