How should the court decide the dispute over the rights to the program code if there are two signatures in it at once?

Question

Copyright

For example, there is some program code in which operators are separated by a semicolon. The code is securely fixed in several independent places with an old publication date, and there is no doubt that this is the original code. It contains the signatures of the authors. Each of them claims to be the only true author of the code .
All characters ;preceded by a space mean 1, otherwise 0. These bits make up information that is translated into ascii characters, which magically add up the author's first and last name: Ivan Petrov (c)
But there is a second signature that does not distort the first. Everything is the same, only the space after the AND symbol is checked ;, it turns out that it contains the name and surname of another person.
What else will the court pay attention to when making a decision? Is it possible that the judge will simply flip a coin and with a 50% chance decide the case in favor of one of the applicants? Or will there be a share decision in favor of both as co-authors? The court has no problems with understanding algorithms and probabilities, because all sorts of experts are involved who explain all the mathematics.

Answer 1

The presence of signatures in the file proves only the fact that both alleged authors had access to the file before a certain date (publication). Authorship from these facts does not follow at all, the evidence will be considered insufficient, the court will reject the claim for recognition of authorship. A decision based on chance is generally beyond delirium.
The Court does not investigate or call on experts. In a civil lawsuit, the plaintiff makes demands, collects evidence in his favor and presents it to the court. The plaintiff in such a situation must himself, or through examination and witnesses, show that only he could write the code, but the defendant could not. If he did not succeed, the judge will not "recognize both as authors", because this is not part of his duties, he only makes a decision at the request of the claim. He will dismiss the claim and leave everything as it is for lack of evidence.
And that's all - only if the alleged authors have already tried to resolve the dispute out of court.

Answer 2

rights to the program code

and

code author

completely different things.

The name "copyright" is conditional, since the law regulates and protects the rights of the "copyright holder", and not the author.

So in this case, it's essentially the same thing.

Copyright will not be determined by a line in the source code. If you can provide drafts (previous versions of the file), you will be the author. Property rights must be documented.

All ; characters preceded by a space mean 1, otherwise 0.

This is a private interpretation, not related to law.