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I keep seeing people put 'work for hire' in contracts without knowing what it means
Just read a contract from a new customer that said 'work for hire' but then listed a bunch of rules about how I couldn't use the work in my portfolio. That's not how that works at all. A real work for hire clause means they own everything from the start, but I can still usually show it off unless we say otherwise. I've had to explain this three times this month alone. It matters because if you sign a bad one, you could lose rights you didn't mean to give up. Has anyone else run into this mix-up lately?
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sanchez.julia1mo ago
Tell me about it, I see this all the time now. I mean, people just copy a term they heard without getting what it actually does. It's super frustrating because you're right, signing a bad one can really mess you up. I had a client last year who tried to say the work for hire meant I couldn't even talk about the project. Had to walk them through the whole thing, it's exhausting. Makes you wonder where they even find these contract ideas.
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the_drew9d ago
Saw a blog post last week that broke this down perfectly. It said a work for hire clause just makes the client the legal author from day one, like @sanchez.julia was saying, but it doesn't automatically hide the work. That's a separate non-disclosure thing. The post used the example of a logo design. Under work for hire, they own it, but you can still put that logo in your online portfolio to get more jobs unless the contract specifically says you can't. People just jam everything into one sentence and hope it sticks.
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milalewis1mo ago
Wait they said you couldn't even talk about the project? That's a whole new level of wrong. It's like they're mixing up a work for hire with some kind of secret spy agreement.
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