noun

• (US copyright law) The initial owner of the copyright to a work, especially a work made for hire or a work of corporate authorship.
  "The author named on the copyright registration for the Android robot is Google Inc."
• (obsolete, criminal law) Principal; the primary participant in a crime.
  "We hear […]of fratricidal murders, and stern reprisals on their authors."
• (archaic) One's authority for something: an informant.
  "Let me inform you en passant, Ladies, that those Villains the Heathens, as my Authors tell me, (and I thought it wou'd^([sic]) not be amiss to communicate such a nice Observation to this House) used to call our Saviour Chrestus, and not Christus, by way of Contempt and Derision […]"
• (figurative) The creator or cause of anything.
  "The other, standing nearly head-on toward the hunters, had not proved so good a mark, and though every spear struck not one entered the great heart. For a moment the huge bull stood trumpeting in rage and pain, casting about with its little eyes for the author of its hurt."

verb

• (chiefly US, sometimes proscribed) To create a work as its author.