## Facts

- Charles Roeslin, III worked for the District of Columbia Department of Employment Services (DOES) as a labor economist.
- DOES collected and tabulated employment statistics for the District and the metropolitan area, including processing Current Employment Statistics (CES) surveys from employers and transmitting estimates to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
- The CES workflow initially relied on manual steps: employees gathered responses from returned surveys and recorded information on office record cards.
- Roeslin was hired in November 1986 as a salaried employee with benefits. His principal assignments included (1) improving employer response rates to the CES survey, (2) increasing the CES sample size, and (3) developing industry and occupational employment projections.
- The position required use of a computer but did not require computer programming skills; at the time he was hired, Roeslin had no programming skills.
- Motivated to automate CES survey processing, Roeslin decided to create a computer program known as the “DC-790” system.
- Roeslin’s supervisor advised him not to work on the DC-790 program, but Roeslin proceeded anyway.
- Roeslin wrote the DC-790 program largely on his own time using his home computer and other personal resources.
- After completing the program, Roeslin brought it into DOES and successfully implemented it for agency use in CES survey processing.
- After Roeslin left DOES, he learned that the agency continued using the DC-790 system and that the District claimed a proprietary interest in it.
- Roeslin asserted that he created DC-790 to prove it could be done and to open opportunities for himself, not to benefit the department, and he sued the District for copyright infringement based on the District’s continued use and copying.

## Issues

1. Whether the DC-790 computer program was a “work made for hire” created within the scope of Roeslin’s employment, making the District of Columbia the copyright owner.
2. If the District owned the copyright as employer-author, whether the District’s continued use and copying of DC-790 could constitute copyright infringement.

## Decision

- After a bench trial, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia entered judgment for the District of Columbia.
- The court held that the District carried its burden to prove that DC-790 was a work made for hire because it was created within the scope of Roeslin’s employment.
- Because the District owned the copyright from the outset, the District’s use and copying of DC-790 did not infringe any copyright interest of Roeslin.

## Legal Principles

- A work prepared by an employee within the scope of employment is a “work made for hire,” and the employer is deemed the author and initial copyright owner.
- Whether a work was created within the scope of employment is determined using agency-law factors, including whether:
  - the work was of the kind the employee was hired to perform,
  - it occurred substantially within authorized time and space limits, and
  - it was motivated at least in part by a purpose to serve the employer.
- When an employer asserts work-for-hire status to defeat an employee’s infringement claim, the employer bears the burden of proving the work was made for hire.
- Creating a work off-site, on personal time, or with personal equipment does not by itself prevent a finding that the work was within the scope of employment when the work directly relates to the employee’s assigned responsibilities and is put to use in the employer’s operations.
- An employee’s stated personal reasons for creating a work do not control if the work’s nature and purpose show it was at least partly aimed at performing or advancing the employer’s work.

## Conclusion

The court concluded that Roeslin’s DC-790 software, developed to automate DOES’s CES survey processing, was the kind of work tied to his assigned responsibilities as a labor economist and was created at least in part to serve the agency’s work, even though he wrote much of it at home and despite a supervisor’s warning; as a work made for hire, the District owned the copyright and could continue using and copying the program without infringing Roeslin’s rights.


Roeslin v. District of Columbia, 921 F. Supp. 793 (1995)