Yes (actually everywhere covered by the Berne Convention, not just 'some states'), but it has to actually say 'work for hire' on the contract, or you have to be a full-time employee of the commissioning company in order for that to kick in:
A "work-for-hire" is a work in which the creator of the work has contractually signed away his/her rights, and thus no longer enjoys any of the rights of authorship, including copyright.
There a two ways in which an original creative work can become a "work-for-hire".
(1) An employee creating a copyrightable work within the scope of his/her employment is creating a work made for hire, in which his/her employer will be the author of record (unless the employee has a contract which specifically states otherwise).
(2)An independent contractor creating a specially commissioned copyrightable work in one of several very narrowly drawn categories (as specified in the Copyright Act of 1976), where the artist has signed a contract specifying that the work being created is a "work for hire" or "a work made for hire."
What are the disadvantages to the artist of "work for hire" contracts?
When an artist signs a work-for-hire contract, the artist is renouncing all authorship rights that s/he once enjoyed as the creator of an original work of art. By signing a work-for-hire contract, you are saying that the other party is the author of the work; that they own the copyright; that they can use it, change it, make other works out of it, do whatever they want with your creation, because you are no longer the creator. In signing a work-for-hire contract, you become an employee for copyright purposes only; it doesn't mean that you are entitled to any employees' benefits from the commissioning party; you're still going to have to pay ALL the income taxes (and self-employment tax!) on the money you earned; AND you may not even retain the right to display the work in your portfolio (Remember, you're not the author any more. You signed away ALL your rights). If you ever become a "star" in the art world, you won't be able to benefit financially from earlier work you did as works made for hire; you don't own them anymore. Period.
How does a work become a "work-for-hire"?
In the case of independent contractors (also referred to as freelancers), the statute as written makes clear that there must be a written agreement between the parties that states that the work in question is a work made for hire, and that this contract must be signed by both parties prior to the commencement of the work in question. Recent court decisions have altered this to some degree-- the waters can now be muddied if the freelancer endorses a payment check from the client with a "work-for-hire" legend on the back; likewise, some megalithic corporations are attempting to tie up their freelance talents' PAST AND FUTURE contributions by having them sign blanket contracts that deem as "works made for hire" not only the current project, but ALL PAST AND FUTURE WORK that that client may have previously or may, at some indeterminate future date, assign to the freelancer.
The reverse is true with employees (as "employee" is defined legally--a person who works for a salary, with benefits, a set place of work, and a schedule and working conditions that are controlled by the employer); everything an employee creates for his/her employer within the scope of his/her regular employment is a work made for hire, UNLESS the employee has a contract with the employer that reverts the rights of authorship back to the employee.
How can an artist avoid the work-for-hire trap?
As a freelancer, NEVER sign ANYTHING that has the words "work for hire" on it. If your client insists, offer them the alternative of exclusive rights for their particular need. Join the Graphic Artists Guild, which is doing great work trying to eliminate this gross unfairness from the field of graphic arts (http://www.gag.org). As an employee, try to negotiate your rights back from your employer (be sure to do so in writing, or it doesn't count).
Re:The "dental records" thing gets me
on
Forensic Discovery
·
· Score: 1
Well, there's a limited search domain - people reported missing in the same geographical region. So the reality is likely somewhere in between.
I could see the police asking for dental records of a person they believe might be dead and keeping it on file, for example.
No, this is about file formats, not applications, and they do appear to be fairly serious about it.
From the article: "...In our definition, "Open Formats" are specifications for data file formats that are based on an underlying Open Standard developed by an open community and affirmed by a standards body or de facto format standards controlled by other entities that are fully documented and available for public use under perpetual, royalty free, and nondiscriminatory terms.
... An example of an Open Format that we have already characterized is TXT text files and PDF document formats.
...It should be reasonably obvious for a lay person who looks at the concept of Public Documents that we've got to keep them independent and free forever because it is an overriding imperative of the American democratic system. That we cannot have our public documents locked up in some kind of proprietary format or locked up in a format that you need to get a proprietary system to use sometime in the future. So, one of the things that we're incredibly focused on is insuring that the public records remain independent of underlying systems and applications insuring their accessibility over very long periods of time. In the IT business a long period of time is about 18 months, in government it's about 300 years, so we have slightly different perspective."
This not only goes far beyond "flirting with open source to get a better deal," it ignores that angle completely - they'd be happy to buy MS Office if they know they (or anyone else!) can hack together a reader for the format in 300 years based on publicly av ailable information.
presidentialbank.com works under firefox, although they pop up warnings about the browser being insecure. And if you route your direct deposit to them, you get nice interest on your checking account balance.
It's not my favorite, but I can see why he thinks so - balance.
Every move has a countermove (even more so in Heretic, which is my nominee for perfect deathmatch, because of the items). 2 highly-skilled doom2 players can continuously battle for 10 minutes or more before a frag is scored on a small map like Dead Simple, throwing every weapon in the game at each other along the way.
I'm pretty bored with the history of typewriter design. Any one of the many people who contributed to the analysis of those documents had their own piece of the puzzle to provide.
And amateur astronomy is a much more popular hobby than amateur typewriter repair. Findings can be verified, correlated, and reproduced. It's the scientific method at work, and it seems to work damn well with the internet as the glue in all sorts of problem domains.
Put in terms you might understand better, would you take issue with the following?:
You have at best, a bunch of coding done with some pretty basic equipment compared to what Microsoft/AT&T/Novell/Sun/Apple has. It is far more likely that the media would shrug it off as an amateur project by some Finnish guy.
Yes, but 'anyone with a decent telescope' would not have the power to put a press release or get any major air time or coverage in any mainstream media outlet.
Well, there's this thing called 'the internet,' that obsessive fact-checkers have been known to post stories on that turn out to be true and widely reported later. Or don't you remember the Dubya guard records forgery thing from like 2 months ago, or have read Groklaw, like, ever?
If you're serious about your mouse, then going and buying a serious mouse isn't a big deal.
Agreed. I just find it odd that apple, with their commitment to sexy-looking hardware, forces a large portion of their most design-conscious customers to buy a non-matching 3rd-party mouse in order to get their work done.
You don't do any graphics work, do you? You already need to be holding down various modifier keys to do many common tasks in most design apps, and adding Ctrl to the mix is unreasonable. Given that Photoshop is the reason a large portion of the installed base of Macs exist, I've never understood this reluctance to add a mouse button.
On a related note, remember the aftermarket snap-on piece of plastic you could buy to make the original iMac's mouse usable?
I took the slime monster as more an allegory of a certain type of person who simply takes and takes from everyone around them, without regard even for whether they want it or not.
The more women that look like Victoria Secrets models out there...animated or live , to me...is a good thing!
I've visited the retouching house that does much of Victoria's Secret's catalog work, talked with the retouchers, and seen before-and-afters.
Victoria's Secret models don't look like Victoria's Secret models. It's not just that zits, uneven skin tone, cellulite, wrinkles etc. are airbrushed out (which they are); in one image, the eyes, hand, arm, a butt, midriff, breasts, shoulders, ear, and hair may have all come from different photos. Add to that the power of mesh warping and anamorphic lenses, and the ability to paint convincing skin and lace, and you have an aesthetically pleasing, but wholly artificial, result. So it's animated only for you, I'm afraid.
You'd still need to transfer the data from the onboard HDD to your computer.
Which you'd no longer have to do at 1x speed.
I can see the benefits of the camera being SMALL, while retaining much better video quality than the current small camcorders
It's not the encoder quality or datastream size, it's the crappy optics and tiny CCDs. The solution to which is exactly the opposite of small. Besides, really small camcorders are difficult to hold steady.
Check out the lego Junkbot shockwave games on lego.com. While arguably 2D, the gameplay, which revolves around building lego structures to get a dumb avatar to a goal (a la Lemmings), is fantastic.
Slashdot Mirror
What's wrong with moral rights?
How is an event that kills young children incompatible with extinction? Sounds like a pretty good way to do it to me.
---------- From COPYRIGHT FAQs © Claudia Karabaic Sargent 1996
What is "work-for-hire"?
A "work-for-hire" is a work in which the creator of the work has contractually signed away his/her rights, and thus no longer enjoys any of the rights of authorship, including copyright.
There a two ways in which an original creative work can become a "work-for-hire".
(1) An employee creating a copyrightable work within the scope of his/her employment is creating a work made for hire, in which his/her employer will be the author of record (unless the employee has a contract which specifically states otherwise).
(2)An independent contractor creating a specially commissioned copyrightable work in one of several very narrowly drawn categories (as specified in the Copyright Act of 1976), where the artist has signed a contract specifying that the work being created is a "work for hire" or "a work made for hire."
What are the disadvantages to the artist of "work for hire" contracts?
When an artist signs a work-for-hire contract, the artist is renouncing all authorship rights that s/he once enjoyed as the creator of an original work of art. By signing a work-for-hire contract, you are saying that the other party is the author of the work; that they own the copyright; that they can use it, change it, make other works out of it, do whatever they want with your creation, because you are no longer the creator. In signing a work-for-hire contract, you become an employee for copyright purposes only; it doesn't mean that you are entitled to any employees' benefits from the commissioning party; you're still going to have to pay ALL the income taxes (and self-employment tax!) on the money you earned; AND you may not even retain the right to display the work in your portfolio (Remember, you're not the author any more. You signed away ALL your rights). If you ever become a "star" in the art world, you won't be able to benefit financially from earlier work you did as works made for hire; you don't own them anymore. Period.
How does a work become a "work-for-hire"?
In the case of independent contractors (also referred to as freelancers), the statute as written makes clear that there must be a written agreement between the parties that states that the work in question is a work made for hire, and that this contract must be signed by both parties prior to the commencement of the work in question. Recent court decisions have altered this to some degree-- the waters can now be muddied if the freelancer endorses a payment check from the client with a "work-for-hire" legend on the back; likewise, some megalithic corporations are attempting to tie up their freelance talents' PAST AND FUTURE contributions by having them sign blanket contracts that deem as "works made for hire" not only the current project, but ALL PAST AND FUTURE WORK that that client may have previously or may, at some indeterminate future date, assign to the freelancer.
The reverse is true with employees (as "employee" is defined legally--a person who works for a salary, with benefits, a set place of work, and a schedule and working conditions that are controlled by the employer); everything an employee creates for his/her employer within the scope of his/her regular employment is a work made for hire, UNLESS the employee has a contract with the employer that reverts the rights of authorship back to the employee.
How can an artist avoid the work-for-hire trap?
As a freelancer, NEVER sign ANYTHING that has the words "work for hire" on it. If your client insists, offer them the alternative of exclusive rights for their particular need. Join the Graphic Artists Guild, which is doing great work trying to eliminate this gross unfairness from the field of graphic arts (http://www.gag.org). As an employee, try to negotiate your rights back from your employer (be sure to do so in writing, or it doesn't count).
I could see the police asking for dental records of a person they believe might be dead and keeping it on file, for example.
Not exactly. Merging two companies does avoid some duplication of effort. Do they need two accounting departments, for example?
From the article: "...In our definition, "Open Formats" are specifications for data file formats that are based on an underlying Open Standard developed by an open community and affirmed by a standards body or de facto format standards controlled by other entities that are fully documented and available for public use under perpetual, royalty free, and nondiscriminatory terms.
This not only goes far beyond "flirting with open source to get a better deal," it ignores that angle completely - they'd be happy to buy MS Office if they know they (or anyone else!) can hack together a reader for the format in 300 years based on publicly av ailable information.
Same with me (freelance illustrator), but I have a tiny teaching gig that has a real HR/payroll setup.
presidentialbank.com works under firefox, although they pop up warnings about the browser being insecure. And if you route your direct deposit to them, you get nice interest on your checking account balance.
Not an employee, just a satisfied customer.
We most certainly did. Nathan Halewas executed for being caught out of uniform, for example.
Can you speak continuously for an hour? Four hours?
Every move has a countermove (even more so in Heretic, which is my nominee for perfect deathmatch, because of the items). 2 highly-skilled doom2 players can continuously battle for 10 minutes or more before a frag is scored on a small map like Dead Simple, throwing every weapon in the game at each other along the way.
That having been said, take every other letter in his designation to get EAT.
I was under the impression that municipal water systems predate NASA by several thousand years.
And amateur astronomy is a much more popular hobby than amateur typewriter repair. Findings can be verified, correlated, and reproduced. It's the scientific method at work, and it seems to work damn well with the internet as the glue in all sorts of problem domains.
Put in terms you might understand better, would you take issue with the following?:
You have at best, a bunch of coding done with some pretty basic equipment compared to what Microsoft/AT&T/Novell/Sun/Apple has. It is far more likely that the media would shrug it off as an amateur project by some Finnish guy.
Well, there's this thing called 'the internet,' that obsessive fact-checkers have been known to post stories on that turn out to be true and widely reported later. Or don't you remember the Dubya guard records forgery thing from like 2 months ago, or have read Groklaw, like, ever?
Which 'big words' were tripping you up? With the cutoff at 6 letters you get:
conversationsb ly
morality
sharing
project
honora
dialogues
adorable
irrelevant
category
are those really that hard?
Agreed. I just find it odd that apple, with their commitment to sexy-looking hardware, forces a large portion of their most design-conscious customers to buy a non-matching 3rd-party mouse in order to get their work done.
In 6 months it will be discovered that this cartridge/handheld combination is needed to run Linux on the DS.
On a related note, remember the aftermarket snap-on piece of plastic you could buy to make the original iMac's mouse usable?
I took the slime monster as more an allegory of a certain type of person who simply takes and takes from everyone around them, without regard even for whether they want it or not.
Where do you get that? Last I checked, the introductory rate was $16-something a month, and went up after 6 months.
they don't ask ANY of the information that they ask online.
YOU PAY THEM MONEY when you get the print edition.
I've visited the retouching house that does much of Victoria's Secret's catalog work, talked with the retouchers, and seen before-and-afters.
Victoria's Secret models don't look like Victoria's Secret models. It's not just that zits, uneven skin tone, cellulite, wrinkles etc. are airbrushed out (which they are); in one image, the eyes, hand, arm, a butt, midriff, breasts, shoulders, ear, and hair may have all come from different photos. Add to that the power of mesh warping and anamorphic lenses, and the ability to paint convincing skin and lace, and you have an aesthetically pleasing, but wholly artificial, result. So it's animated only for you, I'm afraid.
Which you'd no longer have to do at 1x speed.
I can see the benefits of the camera being SMALL, while retaining much better video quality than the current small camcorders
It's not the encoder quality or datastream size, it's the crappy optics and tiny CCDs. The solution to which is exactly the opposite of small. Besides, really small camcorders are difficult to hold steady.
Who, then? Looks like they were to me.
Check out the lego Junkbot shockwave games on lego.com. While arguably 2D, the gameplay, which revolves around building lego structures to get a dumb avatar to a goal (a la Lemmings), is fantastic.