Many freelance writers don’t fully understand copyright law and mistakenly believe that the fact they are paid for a work means that they don’t hold the copyright in it. In short, since they were hired to do a particular job, that the work becomes a work for hire and they also transfer copyright in the work to the buyer.

However, that is very rarely the case.

Though the language is very confusing, simply being paid to create a work does not make it a work for hire under the law. Rather, the law actually only caused a work to be come a work for hire under a very specific set of circumstances, ones that very few freelance writing jobs actually quality for.

So are your freelance writings works for hire? We’re going to take a closer look at what the law actually says and, hopefully, help you find out the answer for yourself. [Read more…]