In that situation, the rights in the work, including the copyright, must be explicitly assigned to the Producer or they will remain with the independent contractor. Moral rights are inextricably tied to the author and cannot be assigned, transferred or given away. Online Concert Licensing and Royalties — Part 1. Online Concert Licensing and Royalties — Part 2. Termination Clauses in Employment Contracts.
Please contact Edwards Creative Law or another lawyer, if you wish to apply these concepts to your specific circumstances. Canada vs. Translations could include works that will be translated from one language to another language or perhaps it could include computer code being translated from one programming language to another. A supplementary work is a work prepared as a secondary source by one author, to go along with another work prepared by a different author, to introduce, conclude, explain or revise the work.
An example is a foreword to a book. Lastly, a compilation is a work consisting of a collection of pre-existing materials that is uniquely arranged or selected to comprise an original work. Consider this scenario. If an independent contractor creates the work, and it does not fall into one of the nine categories, the hiring party could still own the copyright to the work, if it is assigned to him or her by a written agreement transferring the copyright.
If our client is the hiring party, we recommend using language in the Work For Hire Agreement that will alternatively assign the copyrights to the hiring party, if the work doesn't legally qualify as a work for hire.
This can be accomplished with simple language that states, "If the copyrightable work legally qualifies as a work for hire, authorship vests with the hiring party.
However, should the work fail to qualify as a work for hire, then independent contractor assigns all right, title and interest to the hiring party If you need assistance registering your copyright or preparing a Work For Hire Agreement, kindly contact our office for a courtesy consultation. Please do not include any confidential or sensitive information in a contact form, text message, or voicemail.
The contact form sends information by non-encrypted email, which is not secure. Of course, this is a problem if both you and your client want and expect your copyright to belong to the client.
Instead, a license is the right tool for you. When you grant a license to your work, you remain the owner, and you can limit how, when and where a client can use it. Understanding its meaning and application — and coming to a clear understanding with your client about who will own your work — will go a long way toward getting you both the agreement you want.
Image courtesy of Stuart Pilbrow. Vinay Jain, an attorney and former freelance writer, is head of legal at Shake , a mobile application that allows you to create, sign and send legally binding agreements in seconds. If your client thinks it might want to publish the work again in other venues or at a later date, negotiate a separate payment schedule for such potential additional uses.
License all rights for a limited time. If your client insists that it need full rights to your work rather than a usage fee arrangement, negotiate to provide such rights for a limited time period.
At the end of that time, all rights would revert to you. Assign all rights for higher compensation. If none of the above suggestions work, and your client insists on transfer of all copyright for an unlimited time, negotiate for an assignment not work for hire and a higher fee in consideration for such a drastic loss of your copyright. By giving the client copyright ownership, you are giving up any rights to future income from that work. The assignment fee should compensate not only for your current effort, but also that loss of future income and the risks and overhead you bear as part of your freelance status.
In any event, always explicitly condition any assignment or license of copyrights upon full payment of the compensation due to you under the contract.
It is very important to ensure that legally, your copyright does not transfer until you are paid. When a copyright assignment or license is not conditioned on payment, the courts have held that the rights under copyright were already effectively transferred when the contract was signed. That eliminates your ability to claim that continued use of your artwork without payment constitutes copyright infringement.
Instead, your only recourse is a claim for breach of contract to get the fees paid. Finally, its always a good idea to include an explicit provision preserving your right to show your artwork for self-promotional purposes, especially in a work made for hire contract, or if you are assigning copyright or granting an exclusive license to your client.
See the index of previous columns for more answers to your questions. All Rights Reserved.
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