Last December, the Quebec Superior Court issued its decision in Seggie v. Roofdog Games Inc, in which it attempted to clarify the notion of co-authorship (and by implication, copyright ownership) of a videogame. This case marks the first time that the issue of authorship of a videogame was ever considered by a Canadian court (and one of the very few Canadian cases to consider authorship of software more generally).
Given that videogame development is typically a team-based activity, not to mention the emergence of collaborative platforms which facilitate joint development of software by multiple contributors, any lawyer working in copyright law or in the software industry will encounter co-authorship issues with increasing frequency. Seggie v. Roofdog Games Inc. decision will therefore help to provide guidelines on these issues although, like many ground-breaking decisions, it answers some questions while raising others.
Read the entire article here, at Lexology