开云体育

I am not a lawyer, and I have never consulted one on this matter, but I did do a little bit of Googling on "work for hire", as I am in a situation right now where a client of ours is having trouble getting the source code from his previous A/V company.

I found the following definition of "Work Made for Hire" in several places:

1) a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment; or
2) a work specially ordered or commissioned for use
as a contribution to a collective work,
as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work,
as a translation,
as a supplementary work,
as a compilation,
as an instructional text,
as a test,
as answer material for a test,
or as an atlas,
but even then, only if the parties agree in writing that the work is a work made for hire.

The first definition clearly applies to us programmers that are employed by dealers, and write programs as part of our employment with the company. All our work is owned by the company that employs us, and is not owned by the individual author. That makes sense. There was even some discussion about how it doesn't matter if you work from home, or do it on your own time, that more often than not, you are still considered an employee of your company.

The second definition doesn't list "programming source code" as a qualifying type of work. Regardless, you would have to have something in the contract stating that it is considered a work for hire anyway.

This would seem to contradict Neil's statement that "code is presumed work for hire and owned solely by the client," unless there is some other law or definition that applies here, which could certainly be the case. (Insert "I am not a lawyer" disclaimer here again.)

If anyone has any further references to how "work for hire" may apply to our line of work, I would be interested in reading about it.