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POST: should be work for hire

I'll not take the bait & will ignore all the ridiculous personal 
attacks, but there is one very important point worth answering in 
Brook's long post replying to mine.  That is this:

<Point four:... a job of work taken by a friend of mine, was actuall to 
go to India for a year. And the fee was $50,000 plus all expenses for 
him and his family. And, even though it was work for hire, all photos he 
took that had not been used by the publisher within a year were returned 
to him... >

Then your friend either took a huge risk at exposing himself to 
liability for stealing the copyright now owned by the publisher (which 
he transferred to them), not a course recommended, I think for anyone 
wishing to remain in business, OR the contract was just not WFH. If the 
creator retains the rights to reuse the work, then it's not work for 
hire, plain and simple, despite what they call it. They can have large 
48 point type at the top of the contract screaming "This is a work for 
hire agreement", but if the terms don't meet the requirements for work 
for hire, guess what, folks, it ain't work for hire.

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and lays duck eggs, just 
because someone has put it into a green frog suit doesn't make it a 
frog. I've seen agreements that the publisher called "work for hire" but 
only transferred one time N. American rights. They were not WFH 
agreements, so I had no problem, despite the captions. You have to read 
what you are signing, and not rely on simplistic gross sweeping 
generalizations. Was it Tom Wolfe who wrote: "simplicity is for 
simpletons"? Well it happens to be true.

It seems this is a hot button topic for writers as well as photographer....

Enjoy!

Rich Pomerantz

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