How to defend Your material possession Rights in Works Created By Contractors

Use written agreements to ensure you own the rights to creative work 

Companies often hire independent contractors (ICs) to do creative work, such as writing articles, newspapers or books, design business logos, create illustrations or graphics, or develop architectural plans and drawings. You might think that the hiring company automatically owns the work produced by the contractor. After all, the company ordered and paid for it, right?
 
However, in reality, you cannot own the finished product, even if you pay an IC to make it for you. Unlike employees, who almost always automatically belong to the employer, credit unions are independent business people and can retain property rights to the work they create

Copyright Rules

If you hire an IC to create an author's work such as written works, plays, music, art, graphics, photographs, software, movies and videos, drawings, etc., the finished product will be protected by copyright. permission. The copyright owner has some control over how the work can be used, including the exclusive right to copy and distribute the work. If an IC holds the copyright to a work you hire them to create, your right to use that work may be severely restricted even if you have paid for it. 

A written agreement avoids this problem. For certain types of creative work (referred to as “rental works”), you own the copyright as long as you and the IC make a written rental agreement. For other creative works, you will need to use a task: a written agreement in which IC transfers a number or all of the right copyright permissions for you.

Works Made for Hire

When you pay IC to create a rental work, you are legally considered the author of the work and are entitled to all copyright in the work, but you must have a written agreement written to IC that the work is for rent.

However, not all works. can all be rented. Only works in one of these categories are eligible:

• a contribution to a collective work, such as a magazine or literary anthology
• a part of an audiovisual work
• a translation
• a supplementary work, such as an appendix, bibliography, or chart
• a compilation
• an instructional text
• a test
• answer material for a test, and
• an atlas.

Works Not Made for Hire

If the work you want IC to create does not fall into one of the nine categories of rental works above, it will not be considered a rental work and you do not automatically own the copyright to it. . In this case, you will need to obtain a written assignment in which the IC transfers all or part of the copyright to you.

​​Yoel Molina, Esq. (AKA “Mo”)

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