On 14 Nov 2006 at 10:13, Mark D Lew wrote: > By > default, under American law, the copyright of any work for hire falls > to the one who is hiring. If a client hires you to write something, > the resulting product belongs to him unless both parties agree > otherwise.
Er, no, I think that's wrong. Work for hire is only work for hire if the contract explicitly specifies that it is. Otherwise, the creator owns the copyright. The exception is if you're an employee of a company and create the content as part of your daily work. Then it's work for hire without there being a contract, because it was created on time paid by the employer. But an outside contractor always has the rights unless the work is explicitly identified contractually as work for hire. This is the case for writing and for computer programming. I can't see how it would be different for Finale. The important thing is that the paying party specify what they think they are buying and that the creating party then price the product accordingly. But the default is that the creator owns the copyright, not the other way around. -- David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale