Licensors can be sole authors [3.1], i.e. they alone have written the entire program, which makes them owners of the copyrights of the entire computer program. However, many programmers often work together on free and open-source software; this means they can then be considered joint authors [3.2] . Although, this can be difficult to determine in particular cases.

All rights are usually directly licensed by the owners of rights. However, there are also licences which permit sub-licences.

Depending on the software project, the people who are involved in the programming may also have to assign [3.4.1] their copyrights to the softare project. This is done via contributor agreements.