Re: FN-FORUM: Best Blog stuff?

date posted 19th January 2006 10:42

On 19 Jan 2006 10:34:39 -0000, Lee Fogarty [EMAIL REMOVED] wrote:
>
> If you read the whole document, it is actually left very open to the cour=
ts
> to decide whether you are an employee or not. This is the whole point of
> work for hire.

I am definitely not an employee when I create code for a a client -
otherwise they would have to put me on their payroll.

business to business what I create i own unless expressly agreed otherwise

>
> The term 'employee' doesn't necessarily mean that you are on the company'=
s
> payroll.

where does it say that?

an employee of a company is pretty clearly defined in law.

a freelancer running his own business working for several clients is
clearly not an employee of any of them.

(a contractor working on site for one employer might have different
issues, but the contract will handle that)



>
> It also states that if your work is part of a collective work, then you a=
re
> work for hire. Does this mean that if the customer gives you the content
> for the website, it is a collective work?

quite possibly.

in which case I would specifically contract with the client to clarify
copyright issues.

you originally made a sweeping statement that "More importantly, when
a customer pays you for work, they automatically retain copyright of
your work - unless a specific agreement is reached beforehand. Do you
make your customers aware of every piece of code that
you haven't written?"

I'm arguing that you have that backwards.

the exact opposite applies.

I don't want to get into legal interpretation of all the other
aspects, just to clarify that copyright remains with the creator of
the work unless expressly created as "work for hire" which is
generally agreed to apply to work created for a company by that
companies employees but not in a business to client relationship
unless specifically defined in contract


;o)


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