Joint authors

Where two or more people have created a single work protected by copyright and the contribution of each author is not distinct from that of the other(s), those people are generally joint authors and joint first owners (although this might not apply where, for example, these people are employees).

Joint ownership might arise, for example, if a person was commissioned to create a website together with one of the company's employees. It is likely that both the person being commissioned, and the company, would be joint first owners of copyright in the website.  If someone wanted to copy or use a work of joint ownership in some way, all of the owners would have to agree to such a request, otherwise an infringement of copyright could still occur.

On the other hand where individual contributions are distinct or separate, each person would be the author of the part they created for instance where the music and lyrics of a song are created by two different people. In these circumstances, if you wished to use just the lyrics you would only need the permission of the copyright owner of those, but copying of the whole song would obviously need the permission of the copyright owner of the music too.

Of course, ownership of copyright can be transferred, so where something is produced that has involved contributions from more than one person, it would be possible for copyright in all the material to be owned by one person as a result of appropriate transfers. Indeed, collaborators can agree in advance that copyright in what is to be produced should be owned by a single person or body. This could be helpful when permission needs to be given in the future. However, alternative solutions that might be equally helpful could involve all parties agreeing licensing arrangements in advance.