What kinds of work are eligible for "work made for hire" status?

A work made for hire is a copyrighted work that was created by one person at the request of another and compensated by them. The most common example of a work made for hire is a training manual created for a business. Section 101 of the Federal copyright code defines a work made for hire more specifically as either a:

• Work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment.
• Work specially ordered or commissioned for use as a contribution to a collective work, as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, as a translation, as a supplementary work, as a compilation, as an instructional text, as a test, as answer material for a test, or as an atlas, if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire.

For the purpose of the foregoing sentence, a “supplementary work” is a work prepared for a publication as a secondary adjunct to a work by another author for the purpose of introducing, concluding, illustrating, explaining, revising, commenting upon, or assisting in the use of the other work, such as forewords, afterwords, pictorial illustrations, maps, charts, tables, editorial notes, musical arrangements, answer material for tests, bibliographies, appendixes, and indexes; and an “instructional text” is a literary, pictorial, or graphic work prepared for publication and intended to be used in systematic instructional activities.” 

According to copyright law, an employee is defined as anyone directly hired by a business for the purpose of producing money for the business. With regard to work for hire status, anything you create for your employer as an employee is work for hire by default. This means that even if it does not fall into any of the specific categories listed in the law, it is still not your property to copyright. 

An independent contractor is completing works for hire when the work is listed as one of the nine categories in the copyright code and there is a clear written agreement between you and the contractor. If you are working as an independent contractor, it is vital that you understand the importance of a clear contract that outlines the rights and privileges granted to the owner of the copyright. For instance, if you are granting the company the right to use and reproduce your work, but not the right to sell your work to another company, you must clearly list this in the contract. 

Work for hire copyright is a very convoluted area of the law that can get messy fast. If you are an independent contractor seeking work as a creator of work for hire material, consult a copyright or business attorney to draft the optimal contract for your needs.