Talk:Work for hire

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[edit] This is very US centred

The second sentence states: "According to copyright law in most countries, if a work is "made for hire", the employer—not the employee—is considered the legal author." As far as I know, this only applies to the US - not even in other common law countries like the UK. The term "work for hire" is only used in the US, but there is something similar called "works produced in course of employment" in the UK. The difference is vital: the US "work for hire" can apply to any commissioned work, even if it's done by someone who isn't employed by the party who has commissioned the work, whilst the UK term requires that the person is a proper employee. Also, all moral rights, except the right to be recognised as the creator, remain with the creator in UK law, even if the creator is employed. Consequently, the employer can never become the author in the UK, just the owner of the economic rights. In civil law jurisdictions, the employer also often acquires the economic rights to the work through a clause in the employment contract, Similarly, the economic rights to a commsiioned work are also transferred to the commissioner as part of the commssioning contract. But the moral rights can't be transferred to someone else, so they always remain with the creator, even if the creator is an employee. Some civil law countries allow moral rights to be waived (i.e. the creator promises in writing not to make use of them), but only for specific works and for specific reasons (i.e. an employer can't include a general moral rights waiver in an employment contract). Thomas Blomberg 00:06, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

For the UK that's almost true, but not quite. As you say, a UK employer is under no obligation to identify the work of an employee (CDPA sec. 79(3)); but furthermore, the employer may authorise any treatment of the work (derogatory or not), if the employee creator has not been identified (CDPA sec. 82). Furthermore, in the UK they may require their employees to waive any such rights as a contractual condition of employment. But you're right that this kind of handling only applies to work created by employees, not to commissioned work, (unless the commissioned creator has contractually waived thir rights, and/or not asserted them): and you're right that it would be useful to compare/contrast the situation to that in further countries, where the position is even less like that in the USA. Jheald 15:31, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Grammar

'By contrast, Adobe Systems lists many of the developers of Photoshop in the credits for it.' should be changed to 'By contrast, Adobe Systems lists many of the developers of Photoshop in it's credits.' —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.117.236.98 (talk) 21:07, 24 January 2007 (UTC).