## Facts

- SA Braesheather operated an art gallery in Paris known as the “Paris Art Center.”
- Braesheather organized an art exhibition and published a catalog to accompany it, distributed under the Paris Art Center name.
- The catalog contained contributions from seventeen different authors, each credited by name.
- A. Le Brun, a Braesheather employee and the Paris Art Center’s artistic adviser, organized the exhibition.
- Le Brun also coordinated the catalog project, including gathering contributions from the various authors and supervising the catalog’s publication.
- Le Brun wrote the catalog’s introduction.
- About 5,000 copies of the catalog were sold, and Le Brun received no separate payment tied to those sales.
- Le Brun sued Braesheather, alleging she was a joint author of the catalog and therefore entitled to proportional remuneration from the catalog’s exploitation.
- The Paris Court of Appeal ruled for Braesheather, classifying the catalog as a collective work authored (as a whole) by Braesheather, and rejecting Le Brun’s claims.
- Le Brun appealed to the Cour de cassation.

## Issues

1. Whether the exhibition catalog, despite naming multiple contributors, was a work of joint authorship (œuvre de collaboration) or a collective work (œuvre collective) published under the name of the initiating entity.
2. Whether Le Brun’s role as coordinator and editor (and author of the introduction), performed as an employee, entitled her to co-ownership in the catalog as a whole and proportional royalties from catalog sales.
3. Whether Le Brun’s request for proportional remuneration could proceed as an independent claim if her joint-authorship theory failed.

## Decision

- The Cour de cassation rejected Le Brun’s appeal and left the Court of Appeal’s judgment in place.
- The court upheld the classification of the catalog as a collective work rather than a work of joint authorship.
- Because the catalog was disclosed under the name used by the company, the rights in the catalog as a whole belonged to the legal person behind that name (Braesheather).
- The contributors, although individually credited, did not hold an indivisible right in the catalog as an integrated whole.
- Le Brun was not entitled to proportional remuneration based on joint ownership of the catalog; her monetary request did not succeed once the catalog was treated as a collective work.

## Legal Principles

- A work of joint authorship requires a concerted creative process carried out jointly by multiple authors; merely assembling separate contributions is not enough.
- A collective work is created at the initiative of a person or entity that directs the project and publishes it under its name; in that situation, copyright in the work as a whole vests in that person or entity.
- The presence of multiple named contributors does not, by itself, prevent classification as a collective work when the overall project is directed and disclosed under a single name.
- When an employee’s coordinating and editorial activity is performed within employment, that activity does not automatically create joint ownership of the final collective work.
- A demand for proportional royalties premised on joint authorship fails when the work is properly classified as a collective work owned by the publishing entity.

## Conclusion

The Cour de cassation affirmed that the Paris Art Center exhibition catalog—though composed of credited contributions from many authors and coordinated by employee A. Le Brun—was a collective work disclosed under the company’s name, so Braesheather owned the catalog as a whole and Le Brun could not claim joint authorship or proportional royalties from its sales.


Le Brun v. SA Braesheather, 164 Revue Internationale Du Droit D’Auteur 304 (1995)