Work For Hire Research Articles

Wage-Earning Slaves: Coartación in Nineteenth-Century Cuba

Wage-Earning Slaves: Coartación in Nineteenth-Century Cuba

Three Legal Views of a Software: Source Code, Derivative Work, and Work for Hire

Three Legal Views of a Software: Source Code, Derivative Work, and Work for Hire

Исследование семейного благополучия в г. Хошимин, Вьетнам

We study family happiness in Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam) in three areas. These areas cover the entire spectrum of aspects of family life, namely: economic life of the family, family and social relations, spiritual and cultural life of the family. The analysis shows that the highest level of satisfaction with family happiness is in the sphere of spiritual and cultural life, the lowest level is in the sphere of economic life. The level of satisfaction with family happiness is lowest in the middle-aged group, in the group with less than secondary education, in a group with work for hire or self-employment, in the group with low standards of living. Based on the results of the study, the work proposes solutions for social workers in the field of public policy to promote, maintain and improve family happiness in the context of the fact that the industrialization, modernization and international integration of Vietnam have a direct impact on the family.

A work for hire as a result of labour activity of an employee: legislative experience of Russia and Kazakhstan

A work for hire as a result of labour activity of an employee: legislative experience of Russia and Kazakhstan

The Work-For-Hire Doctrine in Russia: Recent Law Enforcement Trends

Abstract This paper aims to describe the work-for-hire regime in Russia and provide the readers with practical information on the due formalization of relations between a company and its employees with regard to the intellectual property (hereinafter ‘IP’) that they create. We have reviewed recent high-profile cases (e.g. Rambler v NGINX, Mr. Mamichev v Interveeam LLC and Veeam Software, Laboratory Kaspersky v Cybersecurity Solutions) that reveal the most common problems related to the work-for-hire regime. Based on our analysis of the applicable legislation, court practice and doctrine, we have given some practical tips and recommendations on how to avoid widespread challenges concerning works for hire in Russia.

Comment: Foreign Contracts and U.S. Copyright Termination Rights: What Law Applies?

The U.S. Copyright Act gives authors the right to terminate assignments ofcopyrights in works other than works for hire, executed on or after January 1, 1978,after thirty-five years, and to do so notwithstanding any agreement to the contrary.Given that agreements which are subject to the laws of other countries can assignU.S. copyrights, and purport to do so in perpetuity, U.S. law’s preclusion ofagreements contrary to the author’s right to exercise her termination right can giverise to a difficult choice of law issue. Two recent cases which came before courts inthe U.S. and England respectively, Ennio Morricone Music Inc. v. Bixio MusicGroup Ltd. and Gloucester Place Music Ltd v. Le Bon illustrate the problem. Inneither case was the choice of law question disputed by the parties, and hence neithercourt had occasion fully to analyze it. Nevertheless, the Court of Appeals for theSecond Circuit in the Morricone case made an observation about the nature of U.S.copyright which has a potentially important bearing on the matter. In this article weconsider the choice of law issue from the perspectives of U.S. law and English law.Under either law, the key question is what law governs the permissible scope ofan author’s grant. Given that copyright is territorial, as a matter of principle, onewould expect that law to be the lex loci protectionis, and that is essentially what bothU.S. law and English law stipulate. Where the copyright is a U.S. copyright,application of the lex loci protectionis in accordance with the conceptualizationsuggested by Morricone, concerning the inalienable character of the right, leads tothe conclusion that § 203 cannot be overridden by a contract subject to a differentlaw. We do not conclude, however, that a multinational grant will incorporate everynational law limitation on the scope of the grant. Limits on the scope of the grantwhich are substantive, when characterized in accordance with the lex lociprotectionis, must be given effect, but not limits which are evidential or procedural.

Evaluating Success Factors of a Medication Adherence Tracker Pilot Program in Improving Part D Medication Adherence Metrics in a Medicare Advantage Plan: Importance of Provider Engagement.

Health plans and providers can increase quality by improving adherence to chronic disease medications included in star ratings among Medicare Advantage Part D (MAPD) plan enrollees. Research is needed to evaluate effective means of collaboration between health plans and providers. The Medication Adherence Tracker (MAT) is a health plan initiative to help primary care providers use outreach to improve their patients' adherence. To quantify the contribution of structural and process factors on the success of a health plan-initiated tracking system in improving chronic disease medication adherence over 6 months. The MAT quality improvement initiative was carried out in South Texas from June to December 2016. Health plan pharmacists used claims data to identify MAPD enrollees at risk of nonadherence to triple-weighted star medications: renin-angiotensin system antagonists, oral diabetes medications, and statins. Actionable reports were delivered biweekly to each provider, either by fax or in person, by embedded health plan nurses. Multivariable regression was used to evaluate sociodemographic and clinical factors as well as the role of provider outreach in increasing paid pharmacy claims and medication adherence as measured by proportion of days covered (PDC) > 0.8. Of 3,542 patients in 5 Texas physician-organized delivery system groups whose 67 providers received tracking reports from June through December 2016, 1,901 (54%) patients had more than 1 related prescription, and 3,064 (87%) received provider outreach on at least 1 prescription. 2,493 (70%) had at least 1 paid pharmacy claim. Provider outreach was associated with greater likelihood of paid prescription claims (relative risk [RR] = 4.59, 95% CI = 3.74-5.62) and greater year-end adherence (PDC > 0.8, RR = 1.86, 95% CI = 1.63-2.12) in multivariable predictive models. 95% CIs for age, gender, low-income subsidy eligibility, and number of prescriptions did not exclude the null value. Provider engagement is critical to effective health plan-provider partnerships to overcome barriers, change behavior, and improve chronic disease care quality and population outcomes. This study was funded by Cigna. The manuscript was prepared as a work for hire. Hong, Esse, Gallardo, Serna, Fosshat, and Mamvou are employees of CareAllies, a Cigna company. Bruce was employed by Cigna at the time of the study. Vadhariya reports a past internship at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, unrelated to this work. Abughosh reports grants from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Valeant Pharmaceuticals, Sanofi, and BMS/Pfizer, unrelated to this work.

Notes on Intellectual Property: Copyright Law

Notes on Intellectual Property: Copyright Law

Respiratory Rate Criteria for Pediatric Systematic Inflammatory Response Syndrome

Critical Care Medicine, National Center for Child Health and Development, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo, Japan; Trauma and Critical Care Center, National Hospital Organization Kyoto Medical Center, Kyoto, Japan This work was performed at National Center for Child Health and Development and National Hospital Organization Kyoto Medical Center. Dr. Nakagawa disclosed that he does Work for Hire. Dr. Shime has disclosed that he does not have any potential conflicts of interest.

Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough: The Necessity of the Recording Industry’s Retention of Ownership of Sound Recordings in Response to the Copyright Act of 1976’s Termination of Rights Provision

The Copyright Act of 1976’s Termination of Rights provision will soon allow musicians to file a notice of copyright termination to regain ownership of our generation’s most beloved musical hits. The recording industry’s strongest defense to the notices of copyright termination is to take preventative measures asserting the musicians created the songs under a “work for hire” legal relationship. This article proposes the recording industry is best suited to exploit the musical works in order to fulfill one of the foundations of copyright law of making works available to the public.

Balancing the Copyright Term: Increasing Public Welfare without Destroying Artistic Incentive to Produce

Copyright protection currently provides the author, artist, or creator of the Copyrighted work with protection for their life plus 70 years or the shorter of 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation in the cases of works for hire. This creates a term, that while good for owners of copyrighted works, harms the public by decreasing access to works from which to build. Further, the extended term does not serve the U.S. Constitutional justification for copyright, that is, furthering the progress of the arts and sciences. Rather, the copyright term has been extended so long that the economic result may be that less works are actually being produced. The copyright term needs to be balanced to maximize both new works produced and public welfare from access to a rich public domain. US 7th Circuit Judge Richard Posner has written on the topic suggesting that copyright terms be short, but indefinitely renewable so that only economically valuable copyrights will remain protected while others will fall into the public domain. Other researchers have also suggested a wide variety of economically appropriate and balanced terms. However, while simply shortening the term may be a economically correct decision, it ignores the US's role as a major exporter of Intellectual Property, particularly copyrighted entertainment.This paper concentrates on copyright in the music industry and suggests splitting copyright protection into two protected uses with different terms: private uses made by individuals for their own enjoyment and creative process and public or commercial uses made for financial gain. While the term and mechanics for public or commercial uses of copyrighted works in the music industry would remain untouched, the term would be drastically shortened for private users without commercial motivation. This paper recommends changing both US Copyright law and International treaties to effect this change.

Intellectual Property and the Media: An Examination of Copyright, Trademark, and Right of Publicity in Sport

This treatise addresses the elements of the law of intellectual property (IP)—namely, copyright, trademark, and right of publicity—most important to members of the sport media. Statutes and court decisions under copyright include definition, rights of owners, fair use, licenses, secondary transmission, file sharing, and work for hire. Under trademark name confusion, dilution, trade dress, abandonment, and cancellation are described, and the current use of the right of publicity, a new member of the IP group, among athletes and entertainers is outlined. Infringement and criminal violation of IP rights are mentioned. The results of court cases focus on IP decisions in sport.

Demanding Respect: The Evolution of the American Comic Book. By Paul Lopes. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2009. xxvi, 232 pp. Cloth, $69.50, ISBN 978-1-59213-442-7. Paper, $24.95, ISBN 978-1-59213-443-4.)

This work is a concise history of the American comic book industry from the 1930s to the present. Paul Lopes divides the period into two ages: the Industrial Age (from the 1930s to the late 1970s) and the Heroic Age (from the 1980s onward). The concept of a heroic age is borrowed from the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, who argued that late nineteenth-century French literary writers achieved a sort of independence from the commercial market by “forming their own ‘restricted subfield’” (p. xiii). By creating this periodization of comic books, Lopes moves away from a fan concept of Golden, Silver, Bronze, and Modern ages, but the story he tells is familiar enough. Printers of newspaper comic strips created comic books in the 1930s as advertising premiums for businesses such as Proctor and Gamble, Wheatena, and Kinney Shoe Corporation. The books' popularity caused publishers to create saleable versions that, in turn, prompted them to seek original comic material. The medium received a boost from the enormous popularity of Superman, who first appeared in print in 1938. Publishers aimed numerous genres of comic books at diverse audiences ranging from children to adults, but critics depicted comic books as childish and therefore defined the primary audience as children. In the 1950s an anti-comic book campaign, led by the psychiatrist Fredric Wertham, all but killed off a comic industry that was already feeling the effects of a post-World War II decline in sales and the rise of television. From the mid-1950s to the early 1960s dc Comics and Marvel Comics, the two major publishers of superhero characters, revamped their content; this action gave comic books a new life. During the 1960s, cultural and political radicals produced a range of underground “comix” that addressed taboo themes such as sex and drugs. By the late 1970s, a period Lopes calls the late Industrial Age and fans call the Bronze Age, comics artists began to lobby for creative rights in their work contract rather than work for hire. New distribution methods via speciality comic book stores, the independence of mind generated by the underground comix moment, and fans' investment in the comic culture allowed artists to gain more autonomy over and take ownership of their work. In the 1980s and since, a variety of publishers began to market comic books as graphic novels and although superhero comics were almost all that remained of the pamphlet-style comic book, the art form found a new respectability among adult audiences.

Instructional Materials and ‘Works Made for Hire’ at Universities: Policies and Strategic Management of Copyright Ownership

Under the copyright doctrine of “works made for hire,” the author and copyright owner of the work is the employer of the person who created it. In the context of many instructional materials and scholarly publications created by faculty authors, however, placing all rights with one party, whether with the university or with the creator through transfer, can be problematic and detrimental to the goals of higher education. In determining whether the doctrine applies, courts look to details of the situation and whether the work performed is “within the scope of employment.” Recent court cases suggest that the doctrine likely applies broadly, and recent developments in the law weaken arguments for a “teacher’s exception” to the work-made-for-hire doctrine.Even if a work is deemed to be “for hire,” the copyright statutes include two important opportunities to change that result. First, the university could simply transfer the copyright back to the faculty member. Second, through a provision of the work-made-for-hire statute, the creator of the work and the employer may agree to reallocate the rights between themselves. Either way, the work remains a work made for hire, and other attributes of a work for hire remain applicable. In order to avoid some of the adverse consequences of works for hire, a copyright owner may choose unbundle rights by transferring or licensing only some rights of ownership, relieving tension and conflicts surrounding claims of ownership. Many colleges and universities have routinely opted for general policy statements that articulate copyright ownership principles. Recent cases, however, indicate that general copyright policies in the context of works made for hire may not satisfy statutory requirements for copyright transfers. Thus, educational institutions and individuals can effectively manage their copyrights, but only by properly attending to the requirements of the law.A court ruling since publication of this work has raised the possibility, in consideration of a motion for summary judgment, that a general university policy allowing faculty ownership of instructional materials may be enforceable. See Bosch v. Ball-Kell, 206 WL 2548053 (C.D. Ill. 2006).

Recording Artists, Work for Hire, Employment, and Appropriation

Authorship and ownership exist in a curious relation in U.S. copyright law. In theory and common sense, authorship underwrites and is the condition of ownership, but in practice ownership can establish authorship retroactively. Distinctions between proprietary and non-proprietary creative cultural workers, in this view, turn in no essential way on evidence of creativity or the investment of personality in cultural creation. This paper examines a legislative struggle between recording artists and the recording industry over the status of their stock-in-trade, sound recordings. In 2000, recording artists obtained the repeal of a 1999 law allocating authorship and ownership of recordings to their record company contractors through the former's assertions not of authorship in the commonsense understanding, but through the artists' legal ability to alienate their employed backup musicians, engineers and other creative personnel. Analyzing this struggle against the backdrop of a historical/theoretical consideration of the dynamics of domination and dispossession naturalized in the employment relationship, I show how the political-economic organization of creative production in the cultural industries depends crucially on and further naturalizes this legal furniture of the social world (Ellerman, 1992), as much or more than it does on immanent aspects of cultural products or production processes.

The Changing College and University Library Market for University Press Books and Journals: 1997–2004

This article evaluates the economic structure of academic and non-academic libraries; the impact of the 'serials crisis' on academic and non-academic library budgets and non-profit university presses; the impact of libraries on the academic life of universities; the impact of the electronic distribution of scholarly content on libraries, academics, students, and university presses; the response of the library community to scholarly book and journal pricing structures; the potential impact of changes in library configurations; the possible impact of the Open Access movement; and the potential impact of the 'work for hire' theory.

Human capital and the private equity premium

When capital market is imperfect, an entrepreneur has to invest substantial personal funds to start a firm and has to bear large firm-specific risk. Furthermore, if a typical entrepreneur is risk averse, private equity should earn a premium for idiosyncratic risk. In this paper I explore the interaction of human capital with the decision to become an entrepreneur. I calibrate a model of entrepreneurial choice to illustrate a significant attenuating effect of human capital on the premium for firm-specific risk. When an entrepreneur can quit the business and work for hire, the firm-specific risk premium is order of magnitude lower than without this option. While an entrepreneur puts at risk a substantial fraction of financial wealth, she does not commit all human capital to the current business. At stake is only the labor income forgone while managing the firm and the rest of human capital is unaffected by the business risk. Empirical evidence suggests that private equity does not earn any significant premium over publicly traded equity. The model with human capital is consistent with this observation, assuming typical entrepreneur forgoes a small expected return (1.5%) in lieu of intangible benefits of entrepreneurship.

Human Capital and the Private Equity Premium

In imperfect capital markets, an entrepreneur has to invest substantial personal funds to start a private firm and is forced to bear large firm-specific risk. Furthermore, if the entrepreneur is risk averse, one would expect the private equity to earn a premium for idiosyncratic risk. In this paper I explore how human capital interacts with the decision to invest in a private business and calibrate a model of entrepreneurial choice to illustrate a significant attenuating effect of human capital on the premium for firm-specific risk. When the entrepreneur can quit the business and work for hire, the firm-specific risk premium is order of magnitude lower than without this option. The main point of the model is to recognize how human capital interacts with the decision to invest in a private firm. While the entrepreneur risks a substantial fraction of her financial wealth, she does not commit all human capital to the current business. At risk is only the labor income forgone while managing the business and the rest of human capital is unaffected by the business risk. The empirical evidence suggests that private equity does not earn any significant premium over the public equity. The model with human capital is consistent with that, assuming typical entrepreneur forgoes a small return of about 1% in lieu of intangible benefits of entrepreneurship.

Work for Hire for Nonacademic Creators

This article examines the Work for Hire Doctrine and its importance to technical communication instructors who prepare students to create intellectual products in workplace settings. The author explains how the Work for Hire Doctrine operates in practice, charts the progressive legal treatment of work for hire through case law, and calls attention to the developing trend in the courts to support a more protectionist stance regarding creative products.

Who Owns My Work?

The work for hire doctrine in intellectual property law is important to academics in rhetoric and technical communication. In this article, the author explains the doctrine and the way in which it works, explicates related case law, and suggests treatment of work for hire by instructors and administrators in rhetoric and technical communication.