>>>For visual artists, you should check out the contracts. Recently
These contracts are often called "Work For Hire" contracts. It is a complicated issue because there are (or can be) contract terms tied to terms and conditions in other contracts. I have read contracts written by amateurs filled with terms that are absolutely unenforceable. I once signed a whopper of a contract. It was for a semiconductor manufacturer and was forty plus pages long. It was part WFH and part non-disclosure. I have been given twenty page contracts for fillers and half page contracts for large features.
I sign what often amounts to a WFH contract every month but I have no complaints because what I write is specialized and not destined for public consumption. Some very large publishing conglomerates force the hapless freelance writer to sign "all Rights" contracts and it is a very bad thing. Time Warner is one such company and they own more than forty popular magazines. TW also demands that the freelancers they buy from sign a WFH contract or suffer permanent banishment.
If I am writing for a magazine, I would never sign a WFH contract; in doing so, I lose the ability to resell the piece over and over again. WFH contracts are a growing problem and most legitimate writer’s organizations decry them. The writer/photographer should always carefully consider what rights they want to give away. Always read your contracts, folks.
In many cases, and if we are talking about employees employed by a company, the employee is not giving up their copyright because they do not always own any rights to what they create. There are many factors to consider. Your employment contract or the company handbook might specifically address these issues.
If you borrow a camera or a laptop, better make sure that you are able to use them freely. Have there been cases won by a corporation laying claim to work produced off company time? What if Harry Potter was written on a corporate asset? Is it so hard to believe that the company would not try to get a piece of a billion-dollar "business?" A silly and rather outlandish example, but we live in silly and outrageous times.
The problem also extends to those that develop a new business using company assets. The company could claim some rights because the business was developed using corporate resources.
What bothers me is the idea that a company (might) own what you produce off company time. I am not sure that is supported by case law. Can you point to some example cases? Did they hold up on appeal?
I simply do not believe it. How can any company lay claim to your efforts if you produce the work on your own time, at home, and using your own computer equipment? Certainly, they can claim anything they want, but I seriously doubt the case will stand appeal if you lose or end up in court in the first place. If it does, we are all in serious trouble.
About all I can think of is the company could claim that you used research compiled for a similar project to complete your project. If you spend weeks researching something on the corporations dime, the company might insist upon "ownership" of the research. Then again, I can think of several reasons why they might not be able to assert any such ownership or rights.
I understand their "ownership" of your work if it was produced on company time using corporate resources. I still have a document issued to me, at my request, by my old employer. It cleared up the questions of who owns what if I produce it on a company owned asset, but on my time.
At the time, I was working on a "Blank for Idiots/Dummy’s Guide" sort of book for a product yet to be released. Ultimately, it became a wildly successful product. Some of the people here likely have owned several examples. My concern was who owns the work. There were trade secrets issues as well, so the lawyers got involved and they gave me a document.
Magazines (generally) purchase what is known as "First North American Serial Rights" and nothing more. These rights simply say the publication has the right to publish the work first. Unless the writer is a dummy, he or she will never give up all rights.
The copyright law specifically calls attention to WFH contract provisions and there are special rules for their use. For example, if you write an article or take a picture for a publication, the publication can not later claim the work was made "for hire" unless you signed such a contract. Generally speaking, a publication owns FNASR and nothing else.
The copyright office says, "if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire...." With the web, publishers seem to want more and more. Then again, publishers will always try to get everything they can just as they always have in the past.
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