490 U.S. 730, 737 (1989)
In the fall of 1985, petitioners Community for Creative Non-Violence and Mitch Snyder conceived the idea for a sculpture depicting a contemporary Nativity scene featuring homeless people to dramatize their plight during the annual Christmastime Pageant of Peace in Washington, D.C.1 Snyder contacted respondent James Earl Reid, a sculptor, and in two telephone calls the parties agreed that Reid would produce the three life-sized human figures while CCNV would build the steam grate and pedestal.23
They selected Design Cast 62 as the material, capped the project cost at $15,000 excluding Reid's donated services, set a December 12 deadline, and reached no written agreement while never discussing copyright.4 After Reid received an advance of $3,000, he made several sketches of figures in different poses.5 At Snyder’s request, Reid sent CCNV a sketch of a proposed sculpture showing the family in a crechelike setting: the mother seated, cradling a baby in her lap; the father standing behind her, bending over her shoulder to touch the baby’s foot.6
Reid sought a black family to serve as a model for the sculpture.7 Upon Snyder’s suggestion, Reid visited a family living at CCNV’s Washington shelter but decided that only their newly born child was a suitable model.8 While Reid was in Washington, Snyder took him to see homeless people living on the streets.9 Snyder pointed out that they tended to recline on steam grates, rather than sit or stand, to warm their bodies.10 From that time on, Reid’s sketches contained only reclining figures.11
From November through mid-December 1985, Reid worked on the statue in his Baltimore studio with assistance from people paid by CCNV installments, and CCNV members visited to check progress and directed the inclusion of a shopping cart for the figures' belongings.12 On December 24, 1985, 12 days after the agreed-upon date, Reid delivered the completed statue to Washington.13 Snyder paid Reid the final installment of the $15,000.14 The statue remained on display for a month.15 In late January 1986, CCNV members returned it to Reid's studio in Baltimore for minor repairs.16
In March 1986, after Snyder requested the sculpture's return, Reid refused, registered a copyright in his name, and planned a tour.17 Snyder filed a competing registration as CCNV trustee.18 CCNV and Snyder then sued Reid seeking return of the sculpture and a determination of copyright ownership.19 Following a two-day bench trial the district court held the sculpture was a work made for hire owned by CCNV, but the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed and remanded on the possibility of joint authorship, prompting the Supreme Court to grant certiorari.20
Whether the sculpture titled Third World America qualifies as a work prepared by an employee within the scope of employment under 17 U.S.C. § 101(1)?21
Under the Copyright Act of 1976, a work is prepared by an employee within the scope of employment only if the hired party qualifies as an employee under the general common law of agency, considering factors such as the hiring party's right to control the manner and means by which the product is accomplished, the skill required, the source of instrumentalities and tools, the location of the work, the duration of the relationship, the method of payment, and other agency law criteria; the right to control the product or actual control alone does not suffice.22
No. Examining the circumstances of this case in light of the agency factors, Reid was not an employee of CCNV but an independent contractor.23 Although CCNV members directed enough of Reid's work to ensure that he produced a sculpture that met their specifications, the extent of control the hiring party exercises over the details of the product is not dispositive.24 Reid is a sculptor, a skilled occupation. Reid supplied his own tools.
He worked in his own studio in Baltimore, making daily supervision of his activities from Washington practicably impossible. Reid was retained for less than two months, a relatively short period of time.25 During and after this time, CCNV had no right to assign additional projects to Reid. Apart from the deadline for completing the sculpture, Reid had absolute freedom to decide when and how long to work.
CCNV paid Reid $15,000, a sum dependent on completion of a specific job, a method by which independent contractors are often compensated.26 Reid had total discretion in hiring and paying assistants. Creating sculptures was hardly regular business for CCNV. Indeed, CCNV is not a business at all.
Finally, CCNV did not pay payroll or Social Security taxes, provide any employee benefits, or contribute to unemployment insurance or workers' compensation funds.27 Because Reid was an independent contractor, the sculpture does not qualify as a work prepared by an employee under section 101(1).
The sculpture titled Third World America does not qualify as a work prepared by an employee within the scope of employment under 17 U.S.C. § 101(1).28
Whether the term employee in 17 U.S.C. § 101(1) of the Copyright Act of 1976 is defined by reference to the general common law of agency?29
When Congress uses the term employee without defining it, courts infer that Congress intended to describe the conventional master-servant relationship as understood by common-law agency doctrine, particularly where the statute uses the term scope of employment, a widely used term of art in agency law, and the legislative history confirms this intent to incorporate agency law principles for uniform national application.30
Yes. The starting point for interpretation is the language of the statute.31 The Act does not define employee or scope of employment, but where Congress uses terms that have accumulated settled meaning under the common law, a court must infer that Congress means to incorporate the established meaning.32 Nothing in the text of the work for hire provisions indicates that Congress used the words employee and employment to describe anything other than the conventional relation of employer and employee.33
The structure of section 101 creates two distinct ways for a work to be for hire, one for employees and one for independent contractors in enumerated categories with written agreement.34 The legislative history of the 1976 Act, resulting from compromises between creators and publishers, demonstrates that Congress intended to retain the distinction between employees and commissioned works by independent contractors, and to refer to conventional employment relationships.35 This reading promotes predictability and certainty in copyright ownership. Therefore, the term employee must be understood in light of the general common law of agency rather than a right to control or actual control test or a formal salaried employee test.36
The term employee in 17 U.S.C. § 101(1) of the Copyright Act of 1976 is defined by reference to the general common law of agency.37