Copyright Retention Under "Work for Hire" with Independent Contractor

[snizoley]

Writing from California.

I have a question about retaining full copyrights under a "work for hire" agreement with an independent contractor.

I want to contract a freelancer to design/create artwork for me of which I want to retain full copyrights. This artwork does not have any immediate use or implementation into and sort of publication. My interest is in shopping the artwork around and sell it as a sort of brand/potential trademark.

From what I understand about hiring independent contractors, the law stipulates that the work must fall into one of the nine categories:
(1) a translation, (2) a contribution to a motion picture or other audiovisual work, (3) a contribution to a collective work (such as a magazine), (4) as an atlas, (5) as a compilation, (6) as an instructional text, (7) as a test, (8) as answer material for a test, (9) or a supplementary work

I cannot seemingly fit the use for the artwork into any of the nine categories, because I have no intention in using the artwork for any publication or movie, etc.
1) Does my use for the work indeed fit into any category?
2) If not, what can I do to retain full copyright from a freelancer for any
type of artwork with no immediate use?

Thank you,
Matt
Los Angeles, California

[kist]

You would use a copyright transfer form. The artist retains moral rights (he can use the artwork in his portfolio for example.) You can't get around moral rights in America since we are a party to the Berne Convention. However you will be the copyright holder.

[snizoley]

Thank you for the response.

Firstly, can I presume that a copyright transfer form can only be completed after the work has been created?

And so, is there, then, any legal purpose to signing a work for hire agreement that stipulates copyright ownership before the work has begun?

And if copyright transfer can only be completed after the work is finished, and a contract was created before hand that the freelancer would sign over copyright, but then chooses not too, is there anything that can be done?

Looks like it can get complicated quickly.

[Jettbot]

Hi Kist just found your post after I've been searching online for an answer to moral rights in a work for hire contract.

What happens if in the contract you've already signed it states that you waive moral rights?

Given the Berne Convention, is this actually enforceable in the US? What if the independant contractor or company that was contracted is in another country? I am not in the US but my client was.

I just want to be able to show the work I did, it's very important to my financial survival and they are compaining I put it on my website even though I marked clearly that it was work for hire for them, and put their name all over it.