I'm no lawyer, but my understanding is that unless you are an employee, copyright remains with the author unless explicitly transferred.

Which is why it's important to get stuff like this in writing. Having a good lawyer look over my contracts has always been worth the price. Partly because my lawyer makes sure that stuff gets done even when the client and I are inclined to focus on the actual work.

This would be the case if you were a musician performing a concert for pay, so I wouldn't be surprised if it applied to writing code as well.

if you submit patches to an open source project, you retain copyright on them as well.

This is why many OS projects now have contributor license agreements.

I don't think a CLA typically assigns copyright. It only provides the project with a license to use the contribution; the contributor still retains the copyright.

> I don't think a CLA typically assigns copyright.

Be sure to read the fine print. The main point of the CLA for most corporate-backed projects is to allow re-licensing under different terms (read: proprietary). This does not require explicit copyright assignment.

On the other hand, the Free Software Foundation requires copyright assignment to give the FSF standing to defend the copyright - to enforce the GPL.

> It only provides the project with a license to use the contribution

Most projects simply specify that any contributions must be made under the same license as the existing code. The act of voluntary contribution is considered (by most) as sufficient to establish assent to this, although many projects take it a step further and require copyright statements in each file header. For projects that never plan to re-license, this works fine.

> On the other hand, the Free Software Foundation requires copyright assignment to give the FSF standing to defend the copyright - to enforce the GPL.

One reason for this is in case someone uses GNU code without following the GPL. With the FSF as copyright assignment, then the FSF can sue the organisation breaking the GPL. Otherwise the individual programmers would have to do it.

Yes. However the company that hired you gets an implied license to the code. Which is usually sufficient for them.

I don't know if this implied license is exclusive or not though.

You should assign the code to the employer of your own initiative simply because it's the right thing to do, and should be the status quo already. Propose language to this effect even if they don't know about it.

Yes if you are hired as a contractor. You are the author of the written code and you own the copyright. You lose the copyright to the hiring party only if the "work-for-hire" clause is in the signed contract.

And the article is arguing that the "work-for-hire" clause isn't sufficient to cause the contractor to loose the copyright.

And in turn the company should look to copyright assignment.

As a contractor, you shouldn't be signing umbrella work-for-hire clauses either. They're usually part of the shotgun approach of "we own everything you do, always, ever".

Copyright assignment is where the give-and-take should take place (which I'm surprised the author didn't speak about) - "company gets copyright assignment based on XYZ (which could include payment, equity agreement, etc.)"

IANAL - I just hire one with one who protects me from signing stupid stuff and is occasionally the nasty stick when clients act up.