No, I was an employee.

However, I worked at a company that employed a ton of photographers, and there is no way that they would be able to get photographers to sign over that kind of authority to the company.

That said, I was there for almost 27 years, and a lot could change, in that time.

By the time I left, their HR was starting to get downright rapacious, so newer employees might have had to sign over those kinds of rights.

Yeah, fair enough. Employment contracts have gotten a lot worse over the years as lawyers figured out what they could get away with.