The "Work For Hire" Doctrine Almost Never Works in Software Contracts

Re:The "Work For Hire" Doctrine Almost Never Works in Softwa... by tzs on Monday May 26, 2014 @09:44PM (#7802456)

The copyright law aspects of the article apply everywhere in the United States. The gist of the article is that you should use an assignment clause instead of a work for hire clause. The work for hire clause is unnecessary.

The California law example was to illustrate that trying to be clever and including both an assignment clause and a work for hire clause could actually hurt you in some jurisdictions.

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Re:The "Work For Hire" Doctrine Almost Never Works in Softwa... by roberthahn on Monday May 26, 2014 @10:21PM (#7802559)

ah, thanks, that clarifies things a bit more for me.

That said, I'm writing from a Canadian perspective. And it's likely that our laws are different in this regard. I'll be looking it up within the next day or so.

EDIT: And I got curious enough to look it up quickly: http://www.gowlings.com/KnowledgeCentre/article.asp?pubID=22...

states that unlike the US, Canada doesn't have a work-for-hire provision, so copyright remains with the employee or contractor. Which is similar in effect to what's written in the OP. I'd want to corroborate that more before staking my business on it, but at the very least my point about checking the laws in your jurisdiction is important.

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