The courseware will be jointly owned by each contributor of copyrightable expression if, at the time their work is created, all of them expect their contributions to be merged into a unified whole and intend to be joint owners. This means that the faculty member, the University (as owner of the media center contribution), the graduate student programmer and the brother-in-law all could be joint owners of the courseware materials.

This is set out in the copyright law in Section 201(a) initial ownership, and Section 101's definition of a joint work. Numerous court cases further refine the practical meaning of these sections. Please review "Who Owns What?" for more information about ownership.