Abstract:
The issue of recognizing co-authorship in a work has created a considerable tension in Sri
Lanka and Europe. The legal questions raised in the German and French cases of Kippernberger
and Druet respectively offer new significant insights into analysing the recent decision issued by
the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka in Dharma Samaranayake v Sarasavi Publishers. Copyright law aims
to protect the rights of the individual authors. The works of joint authorship or co-authorship
are recognized under the Sri Lankan as well as European copyright law. Therefore, the purpose
of this paper is to explore what criteria can be effectively used to establish the co-authorship
in a copyrightable work. While the European authors’ right regime requires a work to reflect
the personality of the author, the common law copyright system applies the skill, labour, and
judgement doctrine. In terms of the methodological approach, this research dwells within the
positivist black-letter legal research methodology coupled with comparative legal analysis. The
results of this research indicate that Kippernberger and Druet cases shed significant light on the
principal question raised in the Dharma Samaranayake case. Even though no arguments had been
made in favour of establishing the co-authorship rights in the said Sri Lankan case, it is clear
that a different outcome could have been reached had that the particular argument been taken
up by the parties. Therefore, the decisive factor should be “who holds the creative control of
the work.” It is evident that both the author mentioned in the book and editor who claimed
the authorship ...
