Authorship--Corporate Operations

In looking at authorship through corporate operations, we can see that there is yet another layer of tension in determining what defines authorship.  Is the writer or the corporation the owner?  When an instructor uses Blackboard at ODU, he or she no longer owns the text published on blackboard.  ODU (as corporation) owns the test or paper that has been published, not the instructor who put it there, who did the actual writing.  In looking at our past readings, we have been navigating who authors by looking at the writer as individual or as a part of a larger whole, we have looked at film producers and editors of novels, we have looked at advertising, now we look at "corporate authorship."  

The corporate author has more control over what is produced.  The corporate author brands anything written, filmed or in any other way articulated.  Disney, the corporation, has branded anything with the name Disney, including the television commercials persuading parents to take their kids to Walt Disney World.  There is control over what is attached to the name Disney.  When Disney films when the Academy Award, who gets the award?  Actually, it is the producer, although credit is given to Walt Disney Pictures Production.  There is a sense of ownership of the film by Disney, which in turn gives Disney authorship.

Corporate authorship seems to be driven by the owner/author rather than the audience.  In looking at "Lone Ranger" the power and the control are by the owner, George Trendell, as the author of the character, the brand and all the stories.  The different audiences, whether through advertising or through direct sales/readership, do not seem to have much control over corporate authors.