Timeline for Looking for an easy word that means "the person on behalf of which something is done"

4 events

when toggle format	what		by	license	comment
Apr 10, 2019 at 0:05	comment	added	Jason Bassford		@user1884155 I don't think that's right. Let's say somebody, J. Smith, writes a technical manual for Microsoft—and F. Jones purchases it. Smith is the author (or creator), Jones is the owner (or recipient) of one copy of the manual, and Microsoft is the owner of the intellectual property—or the copyright holder. Of course, that's just one scenario. But you would never put somebody else's name on a document, pretending that they wrote it, if they didn't. Unless you're talking about a ghost-writing situation. Perhaps if it's a letter signed by somebody other than the person who wrote it.
Apr 9, 2019 at 20:32	vote	accept	user1884155
Apr 9, 2019 at 20:32	comment	added	user1884155		The customer service example is the right context. The focus of the manual I'm writing is "the documents being created", not the people working with them. So it makes sense to talk about the creator of the document, the recipient of the document and I think I'll use the "document principal" to describe the person who's name is used on the document as if he or she created the document.
Apr 9, 2019 at 20:26	history	answered	seventyeightist	CC BY-SA 4.0