Talk:Work for hire

Ease of understanding

I had difficulty understanding the concept of "work for hire" after reading the first paragraph on this page. However, after briefly reading this website http://www.stopworkforhire.com/site/what-is-work-for-hire/ it became very clear to me what it meant. I think my difficulty arose out of the lack of understanding the term "work". Perhaps it would be clearer if "work" or "a work" here were clearly defined as some kind of material produced for a contractee. Either way, I think the introduction/first paragraph should be re-written to introduce people who (like myself) are unfamiliar with the terms. (Too many abstract terms are being used) DoisKoh (talk) 12:41, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

This is very US centred

The second sentence states: "According to copyright law in most countries, if a work is "made for hire", the employer—not the employee—is considered the legal author." As far as I know, this only applies to the US - not even in other common law countries like the UK. The term "work for hire" is only used in the US, but there is something similar called "works produced in course of employment" in the UK. The difference is vital: the US "work for hire" can apply to any commissioned work, even if it's done by someone who isn't employed by the party who has commissioned the work, whilst the UK term requires that the person is a proper employee. Also, all moral rights, except the right to be recognised as the creator, remain with the creator in UK law, even if the creator is employed. Consequently, the employer can never become the author in the UK, just the owner of the economic rights. In civil law jurisdictions, the employer also often acquires the economic rights to the work through a clause in the employment contract, Similarly, the economic rights to a commsiioned work are also transferred to the commissioner as part of the commssioning contract. But the moral rights can't be transferred to someone else, so they always remain with the creator, even if the creator is an employee. Some civil law countries allow moral rights to be waived (i.e. the creator promises in writing not to make use of them), but only for specific works and for specific reasons (i.e. an employer can't include a general moral rights waiver in an employment contract). Thomas Blomberg 00:06, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

For the UK that's almost true, but not quite. As you say, a UK employer is under no obligation to identify the work of an employee (CDPA sec. 79(3)); but furthermore, the employer may authorise any treatment of the work (derogatory or not), if the employee creator has not been identified (CDPA sec. 82). Furthermore, in the UK they may require their employees to waive any such rights as a contractual condition of employment. But you're right that this kind of handling only applies to work created by employees, not to commissioned work, (unless the commissioned creator has contractually waived thir rights, and/or not asserted them): and you're right that it would be useful to compare/contrast the situation to that in further countries, where the position is even less like that in the USA. Jheald 15:31, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Grammar

'By contrast, Adobe Systems lists many of the developers of Photoshop in the credits for it.' should be changed to 'By contrast, Adobe Systems lists many of the developers of Photoshop in it's credits.' —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.117.236.98 (talk) 21:07, 24 January 2007 (UTC).

Punctuation: "its", not "it's". 86.154.8.126 (talk) 23:56, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Potentially bad advice

If Jimmy Wales commissioned Octavia Goodnotes to write a symphony, and she then went on to sell the symphony to other customers, in the absence of a written agreement it may not, in the strictest interpretation, be a "work for hire" -- HOWEVER, in the real world, Wales would certainly have other causes of action that he could pursue. He could without a doubt create a legal nightmare for Ms. Goodnotes. So I hope some independent contractor doesn't see that advice and then think they're free to go off and sell work that was commissioned by Customer A to Customers B, C, and D. Hanxu9 (talk) 17:06, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Definitely bad advice. Commissioning a symphony is such a weird example, no NDA? There's the written music apart from the recording—too complicated. I don't even know why it supposedly wasn't a work for hire, why he has a license or what he could do with it.—Machine Elf 1735 (talk) 19:06, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

It wouldn't be a work made for hire in the US because there are only two routes for work being a work for hire - either

• Goodnotes is an employee (which, since she's being commissioned for this, she's not) or,
• Goodnotes and Wales both sign a work made for hire agreement (example specifies they doesn't) AND the work falls into one of nine categories (which a symphony being written for the symphony's sake does not qualify as - although a symphony written for a book of sheet music of new symphonies may, or a symphony written to be a soundtrack for a movie may.)

More info courtesy of the US government. Do people really sign NDAs for symphonies? --Nat Gertler (talk) 20:03, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Comics

The following troubles me:

"Similarly, newspapers routinely credit news articles written by their staff, and publishers credit the writers and illustrators who produce comics featuring characters such as Batman or Spider-Man, but the publishers hold copyrights to the work."

Most of the comics in daily newspapers (but not editorial cartoons) are syndicated and copyright is owned by the syndicate or the author/artist/illustrator. The copyright is quite separate from that on the newspaper itself. . . Jim - Jameslwoodward (talk to me • contribs) 17:14, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I've clarified the comics reference to make it clear that it refers to comic books, not to newspaper strips. --Nat Gertler (talk) 18:13, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Assignment not effectively limited to 35 years

The original article states that, due to the US statutory termination rights, assignments of non-work for hire copyrights are "effectively limited to only 35 years because the author or the author's heirs could exercise their right to terminate the assignment." This statement is inexact. The termination of one's transfer or assignment of rights is not automatic. Therefore, absent an author (or his qualified heirs) executing the formalities to terminate the assignment, the transfer or assignment is not at all limited.

The more accurate statement here is that the assignment/transfer is effectively guaranteed for only 35 years (40 for publication rights). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.77.49.100 (talk) 01:41, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Non-employee work for hire

I just reverted someone's recent edits which claimed that work-for-hire only applied t the work of ful-time employees in the US. This is not the case; the law is explicit that it can apply to the work of independent contractors. See this brochure for more information. --Nat Gertler (talk) 20:43, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Work for hire in textbooks and academic writing

I doubt very much that the graf about textbooks and academic writing is applicable now, though it might have been back in the day. The citation is obsolete: "The application of the law to materials such as lectures, textbooks, and academic articles produced by teachers is somewhat unclear. The near-universal practice in education has traditionally been to act on the assumption that they were not work for hire.[5]"

Textbook publishers were one of the principal industries lobbying for the work for hire provisions in the 1976 law. The publishers wanted to more easily control the rights to all contributions to their textbooks. As for lectures and other curricular materials, work for hire is presently used throughout colleges and universities to claim the rights to these works. Adjunct faculty were once hired as independent contractors but that led to confusion over rights, so now they're almost universally hired as employees and work for hire is applied correctly.

Only articles published in academic journals are still viewed as the faculty's own, but even that is changing on many campuses. Administrations are increasingly viewing the articles as work product, especially in fields in which there's a chance of making money from the articles' content and/or the faculty's investigations.

My sources for all this are anecdotal, so I won't edit the graf.

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