Copyright normally belongs to the person or persons who created the work. While the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 states that material produced by employees belongs to their employer, it makes no mention of volunteers. This means that the copyright of a volunteer's work remains with them and not the organisation.
Organisations should ask their volunteers to assign or transfer copyright to them, or even agree a licence to use the work in certain situations or publications. This might seem like a trivial issue, but Volunteering England has heard of cases where volunteers have been producing work for important publications such as an Annual Review, but following disputes with their organisations have refused to allow them to use their work.
Further information
