Ownership Opinions & Chain of Title

Before you buy a copyrighted work, license it, build a product on it, or invest in a company whose value depends on it, one question comes before all others: who actually owns the rights? The answer is often less obvious than it looks. Works pass through creators, employers, contractors, heirs, and prior deals — and a gap anywhere in that chain can mean the person selling or licensing to you doesn't hold what they're offering.

We trace chain of title through the records that establish it — Copyright Office registrations and recorded transfers, employment and contractor agreements, publishing and licensing contracts — and analyze the questions that determine ownership along the way: whether a work was made for hire, whether a transfer was properly documented, whether joint authorship complicates the picture. The result is a written opinion you can rely on in a transaction or use to fix problems before they become disputes.

Where the chain has gaps, we help close them: preparing confirmatory assignments and recording transfers with the U.S. Copyright Office, which establishes a public record of your ownership and priority over conflicting transfers. Every opinion and recordation is quoted at a flat fee, scoped to the transaction or question at hand.