Overreaching Clause About Works Made for Hire

[1] The AUTHOR and [distributor] intend this to be a contract for services and each considers the products and results of the services to be rendered by the AUTHOR hereunder (the "Work") to be a work made for hire. The AUTHOR acknowledges and agrees that the Work (and all rights therein, including, without limitation, copyright) belongs to and shall be the sole and exclusive property of [distributor].

[2] If for any reason the Work would not be considered a work made for hire under applicable law, the AUTHOR does hereby sell, assign, and transfer to [distributor] its successors and assigns, the entire right, title and interest in and to the copyright in the Work and any registrations and copyright applications relating thereto and any renewals and extensions thereof, and in and to all works based upon, derived from, or incorporating the Work, . . . throughout the world.

This language is designed to grab all rights from a free-lance author or artist. The first clause purports to create a work for hire agreement, which would mean that the author has no rights left at all, ever (and cannot even get them back through the termination right). The second clause takes a belt-and-suspenders approach: if for any reason the work is not for hire -- which it would not be if the commissioned work did not fall within the statutory categories -- the author explicitly assigns all rights not only in this work, but in any work based on this work, for the full term of copyright, for the whole world.

Consultant agrees to transfer and assign, and hereby transfers and assigns, to Company and its designees, without further compensation, the entire right, title and interest throughout the world in and to: (a) all Technical Information first produced by Consultant in the performance of this Agreement; (b) all Intellectual Property resulting from Consultants activities under this Agreement; (c) all Intellectual Property relating to any Deliverables under this Agreement; and (d) creations and inventions that are otherwise made through the use of Company's or its affiliates equipment, supplies, facilities, materials and/or Proprietary Information. All such Technical Information and Intellectual Property that are protectable by copyright will be considered work(s) made by Consultant for hire for Company (as a works made for hire as defined in the United States Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C.101) and will belong exclusively to Company. If by operation of law any of such Technical Information or Intellectual Property is not owned in its entirety by Company automatically upon creation, Consultant agrees to transfer and assign, and hereby transfers and assigns, same as stated in the first sentence of this Section.

This is an agreement between a photographer and a media conglomerate. It stipulates that the work is to be classified as a 'Work Made For Hire' and that all copyrights in the work will belong to the hiring party.

A. Ownership of Contributions. Each of your Contributions will be original and solely created by you as a "work-made-for-hire" specially ordered or commissioned by us, with XXX Media being deemed the sole author of the Contribution and the owner of all rights whether now known or hereafter devised (including all copyrights and all extensions and renewals of copyrights) in and to the Contribution, with the right to make all uses of the Contribution throughout the world and all changes in each Contribution. Without further obligation to you, we may use, reproduce, edit, change, add to, take from, translate, reformat, or reprocess the Contribution in any manner. To the extent any Contribution is not deemed to be a work made for hire, you irrevocably assign to us all rights whether now known or hereafter devised (including all copyrights and all extensions and renewals of copyrights) in and to each Contribution throughout the world, including any and all of your rights to authorize or control the exploitation of each Contribution by any media and means now known or hereafter devised. You waive all "moral rights of authors" that may exist or any similar rights. We may, but are not obligated to, provide attribution to you in connection with any Contribution or to display, use or otherwise exploit any Contribution. We have the right, without liability to you, to use any ideas, suggestions, or questions provided by you to us. Upon request by us, you will promptly provide us with such documents and agreements as we may require to further evidence and confirm your representations, warranties, and covenants under this Agreement, including material and location releases and assignments.

B. Our License To You. We grant you a royalty-free, limited, nonexclusive, nonlicensable license to the Contributions for performance, distribution, and display on your personal or business website so long as your website contains no less than 1 prominent crawlable link to the WEBSITE OPERATOR Website appearing in close proximity to each Contribution on your website.

This could be one of the most overreaching contracts we have on our site. It's between a company that runs a website and seeks contributions (photographs and written works). This contract dictates that the work is a work for hire even though there is no evidence that the contribution fits the description in Section 101 of the Copyright Act. Furthermore, it says that the site does not have to give the author credit for his or her work and may even use the author's ideas or suggestions without remuneration or credit. Finally, it allows the author to use his or her work only in connection with his or her own website and then only if a link is provided to the website to which the work was contributed.

Except as may be set forth in an applicable Schedule, Publication shall own and retain all right, title and interest in and to all Work and all other reports, documents, materials, ideas, concepts, know-how, specifications, plans, notes, drawings, designs, pictures, images, text, audiovisual works, data, information and other items, expressions, works of authorship or work product of any kind that are authored, produced, created, conceived, collected, developed, discovered or made by Author in connection with the Work or which relate in any manner to the Work or which result from any Work produced by Author for Publication, including any and all intellectual property rights therein (collectively the Work Product). To the extent applicable, Publication shall be deemed to be the author of all Work Product, and all such Work Product will constitute "works made for hire" under the U.S. Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. Â101 et seq.), and any other applicable copyright law. To the extent that any Work Product does not constitute a work made for hire, Author hereby assigns to Publication all right, title and interest that Author may have or may hereafter acquire in all Work Product, including all intellectual property rights therein.

This contract is between an author and a travel magazine. It states that all work product of the author (including research materials) are the product of the publication and solely the publication owns all rights in them. It also states that the work is a work-for-hire.