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• NATURE OF THE CONTRACT OF CO-AUTHORSHIP 47
the mutually reciprocal obligations that are concomitant with partnership.64 Where the parties have by special contract created a co-partnership, any cause which operates to dissolve the partnership remits them once more to their rights as co-tenants in the common work.65
Since death works a dissolution of partnerships, the death of one co-author would dissolve any relation of partnership or joint venture created between them by special contract.
Suppose that, in the absence of any special contract between them, one co-author dies before the completion of the work. What becomes of his rights to the work? To answer this one must examine the nature of thencontract. "When two men agree between themselves to write a play or book, the law spells out an implied cove
201; PanJchurst v. Kinsman (1849), 1 Blatch. 488; Carter v. Bailey (1874), 64 Me. 463.
64 Heye v. Tilford (1896), 2 A. D. (N. Y.) 346; 37 N. Y. Supp.' 751; aff’d 154 N. Y. 757; 49 N. E. 1098; Central City Sav. Bank v. Walker (1876), 66 N. Y. 424; Burnett v. Snyder (1879), 76 N. Y. 344; London Assurance Co. v. Drennen (1886), 116 U. S. 461; 6 Sup. Ct. 442. “To constitute a partnership there must be a reciprocal agreement of the parties not only to unite their stock, but to share in the risks of profit or loss by the disposition to be made
of it. . . .” Baldwin v. Burrows (1872), 47 N. Y. 199 at 206. And see Smith v. Dunn (1904), 44 (N. Y.) Misc. 288; 89 N. Y. Supp. 881; and Stevens v. McKibbin (1895), 68 Fed. (C. C. A.) 406, the latter case giving a most detailed and logical discussion of the essential elements of partnership.
65 Pankhurst v. Kinsman (1849), 1 Blatch. 488. “The assignment (of the interest in the partnership) worked a dissolution and left the parties interested in the patent simply to their rights under it.”