Work-for-hire or license?

spinfire

In my day job I am a computer software engineer at a small company (and a full time student!). In December I took some photos for the company (at the company) on the clock with the full realization that they would get rights to the photos, as a condition of my normal employment there. I wasn't acting as a pro photographer, just an enthusiast helping out a small company.

My question is:

a) Is this automatically a "work for hire" and thus they own the copyright? Nothing was agreed upon prior to taking the photos.

or

b) Should I draw up a simple royalty free license statement for them stating that in consideration of my regular employment I grant them perpetual license to the photos?

Again, I'm not concerned that I got ripped off, but the photos are being used by the company and I want to cement whatever it is in paper to avoid any confusion. Some of the photos are decent pictures of (non proprietary) networking or computer equipment which would also make good stock photos. So, it would be useful to know if I unwittingly gave away the copyright to these photos.

In the future, I will think about these things first

Icebear

I think that when you do work for your employer in the course of your employment, there is an assumption (rebuttable) that the work is "work made for hire." No written acknowledgement or agreement is necessary. Some written agreement would probably be necessary to rebut the "work made for hire" assumption.

If you wish to also be able to use these photos, I'd think a written license agreement from your employer might be something you'd like to have.

I am neither a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV.

Foochar

spinfire wrote:

In my day job I am a computer software engineer at a small company (and a full time student!). In December I took some photos for the company (at the company) on the clock with the full realization that they would get rights to the photos, as a condition of my normal employment there. I wasn't acting as a pro photographer, just an enthusiast helping out a small company.

My question is:

a) Is this automatically a "work for hire" and thus they own the copyright? Nothing was agreed upon prior to taking the photos.

or

b) Should I draw up a simple royalty free license statement for them stating that in consideration of my regular employment I grant them perpetual license to the photos?

Again, I'm not concerned that I got ripped off, but the photos are being used by the company and I want to cement whatever it is in paper to avoid any confusion. Some of the photos are decent pictures of (non proprietary) networking or computer equipment which would also make good stock photos. So, it would be useful to know if I unwittingly gave away the copyright to these photos.

In the future, I will think about these things first

You may want to take a look at http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ9.html. Based on my reading of this document it seems like your photos would probably be considered works for hire. If you would want rights to use these photos you should probably draw up a document for your employer to sign granting you an unlimited, perpetual license to these photographs, basically reversing the roles you talked about in scenario b.

Angelo

Based on what you've explained I wouldn't worry too much about this. I would just use the photos with a pretty good idea the company will never raise the question of ownership.

Technically this is not a matter of work-for-hire becasue you are not employed by the company as a photographer.

WFH protections are designed to protect employers in matters of employment -specific development. example: if, as a software engineer, you developed some revolutionary, patentable process, marketable to other firms, and you created this marvel while in the employ of your company, you would have no claims of ownership to that process because your company is PAYING YOU TO DEVELOP FOR THEM

Make sense?