Who owns the copyright?

[Acsenray]

(Can I make a second request for you to use the native quoting function? You’re making more work for the rest of us.)

@Chronos

It’s my understanding that oral contracts are perfectly legitimate, so long as there’s no dispute between the parties to the contract as to what the contract was. And it looks like, in this case, there’s no dispute between the OP and the band.

Oral contracts in general are legitimate under state contract law. However, oral agreements are not effective in certain specifical contexts, for example, under the Statute of Frauds. And, specifically, as I said, the Copyright Act of 1976, which preempts all state law in the relevant field, states that agreements that a work is a work made for hire must be written. This overrides the general effectiveness of oral contracts. I’ll quote the relevant statute again:

@17 U.S.C. §201(b)

(b) Works Made for Hire. — In the case of a work made for hire, the employer or other person for whom the work was prepared is considered the author for purposes of this title, and, unless the parties have expressly agreed otherwise in a written instrument signed by them, owns all of the rights comprised in the copyright.