(really an employment law case, but interesting nonetheless).
Via 
InternetCases.com. Brinney, employee and co-founder of Banner, was fired for, among other things, claiming copyright for company’s website content and catalog. She sued for unemployment benefits and was denied, from which she appealed and appealed again. The North Carolina Court of Appeals reversed the denial. The court said that it was not misconduct Binney to claim ownership in the company’s web content and catalog and website. She created the original catalog prior to the company’s incorporation, all subsequent versions were dirivitive works of the first, and she was not acting in bad faith in believing that she had copyright ownership. Thus, there was no evidence of misconduct to warrant denial of benefits.
Binney v. Banner Therapy Products, ___ S.E.2d ___, 2006 WL 2022223 (N.C.App., July 18, 2006).
Filed under: Copyright
FYI, subsequent catalogs are in no way derivative of her work. Our graphics/layout tech has created all of the latest catalogs herself. Descriptions of products and their images are mainly from the manufacturers and original distributors, and have all been modified by myself or someone else in the company. None of the existing media from our company has anything to do with any of Christina’s original work.
Actually, I did leave a comment… somehow, it did not get posted. None of our current media is in any way a derivative work from Christina’s original work. In addition, most of what she claims as hers is actually copyrighted to our distributors and manufacturers.