>>I think it's necessary to understand exactly what rights you're giving
>>away. Under both British and Australian law, and therfore I presume
>>virtually every other former bit of the British empire, if you produce
work
>>on commission, then the copyright is owned by the commissioner of the job,
>>not by the person who accepts the commission. If, on the other hand, you
>>create a site on spec and then sell it to a company, you have the right to
>>retain the copywright.
Suz writes...
>this is NOT true under US law. Under US law, the creator owns the copyright
>unless he or she has agreed to work under a "work for hire" contract or
>unless he or she is an employee of the commissioning company.
But that's exactly what he's saying. In the USA, if you do "work for hire"
(that is nearly all contracting) or if you are an employee of a company,
then the company owns the copyright. What he is saying is perfectly true,
and in the majority of cases, that's the situation.
If you write a novel or do a painting (artistic, instead of painting a wall
or an ad) or similar, then you may have a publication contract. In that
case, you hold the copyright and then negotiate a contract to assign the
copyright to a publisher. But in many cases, one writes content for
publication where the copyright is held by the company. For example, I write
many computer manuals, and there is no discussion of my "owning" the
copyright. It's work-for-hire.
There's an awful lot of misunderstanding on this list about copyrights. Some
of it arises because people who are in different countries. It would be best
if people consulted their attorney and got a written statement from their
attorney about these issues.
___________________________________________________
Andreas Ramos [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.andreas.com
____________________________________________________________________
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