2 ms·
It's interesting that you can give away your copyright to another entity (if it's a "work made for hire") but you can't give up your copyright completely to pla
by cpressey 14y ago
It's interesting that you can give away your copyright to another entity (if it's a "work made for hire") but you can't give up your copyright completely to place a work irrevocably into the public domain.
What if I create a legal entity, have it hire me to make a work, and then dissolve the entity? (That's mostly rhetorical; I expect the answer, if it exists, is messy.)
EDIT: answering my own question: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphan_works http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphan_works
- jxdxbx 14y agoThere's a difference. You never owned the work to begin with in a work made for hire. Example: a New York Times reporter never owns the copyright to his articles--they are owned by the NY Times from the beginning. There is no transfer. The article is in a sense written "by" the Times. But if I write an article and then sell all the rights to the Times later, I can claw it back in a few decades. The arguments are over what happens when it's not so clear. Like what if the Times contracts with an independent freelancer specifically to write an article?