SELLING YOUR SOUL TO THE COMPANY STORE…
May 20th, 2006
When you’re a hired gun there is always a tension about how much of yourself you’re hiring out. In the 21st century there’s a pesky little rule called work for hire. What it means is that if you agree to it, your employer owns everything you do for it during the time you’re employed. You can’t walk out the door with just a kiss.
Now that can be acceptable if you’re a regular employee, but when you’re freelancing, it can be a disaster.
Will Kessel and I talked about this Wednesday evening at the Blogger MeetUp and he’s decided to blog what we talked about. Will wisely walked away from this contract. But not everybody can do that. He writes:
Recently, a local entity asked me to create a web site for them. Needing the work, I agreed to enter an approval process so that their parent company would approve my payment.
At the end of the process, I was presented with a letter of approval which also stood as a contract. The contract contained this clause:
The Contractor (that”s me) acknowledges that any and all products delivered to the Corporation (that”s them) under this Agreement, including without limitation, any reports, are works for hire. All documents, reports, analyses, drawings, designs, blueprints, photographs, sketches, software (including without limitation, enhancements, modifications, customizations, fixes and workarounds to software) and other materials (the “Work Product”) prepared by or for the Contractor in the course of the Contractor”s Services shall belong to the Corporation, and the Contractor grants, the Corporation all right, title and interest, including copyright and trademark, in the Work Product.
Ahem.
What this means is that the “Corporation” owns everything, lock, stock and barrel. Any bits of CSS coding, including that which creates a certain look and feel, the use of any and all images, belong to the Corporation, right down to the last (God forbid I ever use one) spacer GIF.
For a clear picture of how slavery works in the tech world, keep reading.
My Soundtrack: Baby Don’t Sweat by The Cribs on WOXY.
Yup. Work for hire contracts can really suck. My single piece of advice? Never accept a unilateral indemnity clause that says you indemnify the payor. Either have it made reciprocal, have it removed, incorporate yourself or walk away. Here’s a link to an article I wrote for Quill magazine about the topic:
https://www.spj.org/quill_issue.asp?ref=870
Shalom Jill,
Thanks for the link, but only SPJ members can read it. If you send me a copy I’ll turn it into a Word Press Page and link to that.
In my early days as a freelancer — pre-work-for-hire — I ticked off more than one editor by putting First North American Serial Rights Only on the top of my invocies. At least twice I had to threaten small claims court to get paid because I refused to turn over all rights.
Work For Hire only made things worse for beginning writers.
B’shalom,
Jeff
I won’t forget – but it might have to wait a day or two. :)