Critical: What You Need to Know About Work-For-Hire

This blog is dedicated to supporting design in all of its forms and sharing in the process of designing. There are many pitfalls out there-as there are opportunities for success-but today I want to bring to your attention a nasty bit of business: the work for hire clause. 

Stopworkforhire.com is a website devoted to bringing awareness to what work-for-hire or work made for hire means and why its being used by many companies. 

"According to the U.S. Copyright Act, work-for-hire is a provision that allows a very narrow exception to the basic rule that the contractor who creates the work inherently owns the copyright to the work created. Work-for-hire grants authorship and ownership of the work produced to the individual or company who commissioned the work. Work-for hire is a means for a company to treat a contractor as a full time employee without having to provide any of the benefits of employment to the contractor as 'compensation' for loss of copyright and any future income the company may generate from reuse of the work produced". With this clause and your signature, it "effectively strips any and all rights to any and all work the contractor created while working under such an agreement. 'All' work includes sketches, doodles, layer files, prep files, finished art. You can't even use the work that you created in your own portfolio." 

Although the website cites the U.S. Copyright Act, its still an issue for those working in Canada, U.K and many other places around the world. 

UPDATE: Professional Artists League, the organization behind the website has posted a defense of work-for-hire. Its a must read!