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Has anyone seen any clauses within an independent contractor agreement, which would allow the retention of certain pieces of the finished work? For instance, I write a class/component/plugin/etc. that I want to use in several projects to increase productivity. Is there a standard way to carve out and retain those pieces of code?
Has anyone seen any clauses within an independent contractor agreement, which would allow the retention of certain pieces of the finished work? For instance, I write a class/component/plugin/etc. that I want to use in several projects to increase productivity. Is there a standard way to carve out and retain those pieces of code?
> A highly recommended practice is to institute a clause which covers a variety of scenarios of assignment of the copyright for all work produced. This is what I've done for years with my Service Agreement. IP transfer officially occurs on full payment, and rights are assigned to Client if Product would not be considered a work made for hire under applicable law. Though if I'm not paid, I send a written warning after…
How would you recommend drafting something similar? Did you work with a lawyer to produce your Services Agreement?
Obligatory: Fuck You, Pay Me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h3RJhoqgK8
> A highly recommended practice is to institute a clause which covers a variety of scenarios of assignment of the copyright for all work produced. This is what I've done for years with my Service Agreement. IP transfer officially occurs on full payment, and rights are assigned to Client if Product would not be considered a work made for hire under applicable law. Though if I'm not paid, I send a written warning after…
https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2016/12/09/developers-side-pr...
"... If you hire a photographer to take pictures for your wedding, you own the copies of the pictures that you get, but the photographer still owns the copyright and has the legal monopoly on making more copies of those pictures. Surprise! Same applies to code."
The problem I see with transferring IP/copyright on a 'work for hire' basis, is that certainly in my case a substantial portion of the codebase is often code that is being reused for good reason.
Losing control of that code now effectively prevents the same code from being reused this elsewhere without getting into further messy contractual details.
Personally I refuse to do work for hire - instead the client gets unrestricted right to use code as desired but does not own copyright.
Thoughts?