Should designer own copyright?

[softball]

Originally Posted by pornlaw

Not true. You need a Work for Hire and an Assignment of Rights to truly own it. In the US, copyright is a akin to a property right than can only change ownership through a written agreement.

Without them, as the person paying for it, you only have a license to use their work.

There is an exception - unless the person performing the work is a salaried employee with taxes and all the other benefits that come with it. You cannot 1099 someone and then claim they are an employee. If they are an employee you own everything they do in the course of their employment.

I have been around this block with all the major us tv networks. Their "opinion" is they hired me, put me into the situation to take the images, rented my equipment, they now own it. It falls under the industry standard argument. My work has been used over and over again in various documentaries, news magazine programmes and news shows and historical works.
I suppose that ultimately myself and a legion of other photo journalists could be owed rather large sums....
Here is the case we most commonly discussed...
http://www.ncac.org/art-law/op-dauman.cfm
Its pretty well known in the biz.