Chapter 2 examines how copyright’s treatment of collaboration and crediting elevates might over right with problematic consequences for both creative and egalitarian interests. Drawing on the history of the beloved musical Rent, the chapter begins by assessing how the imposition of copyright’s mutual-intent requirement has transformed questions of joint authorship into a referendum on leverage that fails to recognize modalities of creation that are more collaborative in nature and disproportionately burdens individuals with lesser bargaining power, thereby disadvantaging women, people of color, and the poor. Meanwhile, the striking lack of a law of crediting has undermined the efficacy of the copyright regime by stymieing the allocation of capital resources towards the very individuals with the ability to best advance progress in the arts. And, when viewed through the prisms of gender, race, and class, it has also left those at society’s margins most vulnerable to exploitation and disproportionately susceptible to receiving insufficient credit for, and participation in, the spoils of their creative labors. To better align copyright with its policy goals and to promote social justice, our laws of collaboration and crediting must begin to privilege creativity over clout, and not the other way around.