im working on an fps with my team. essentially im working on a contract and im curious as to what you all think as who should have the rights to coding, artwork, etc. the game is going to eventually turn into a series and maybe even more into a franchise later down the line. so i think that it should be the company who recieves the rights to use any of the teams work. ive had 2 members complain saying they just dont think that this should be allowed. i want to create a fair and equal contract but i think that in order for the future of this series the company will be needing these rights. this is what one of my members said - "People join this project purely to practice skills and they want to show theyr progress to others. #2 reason is to fill theyr portfiolios with works. I'd personally quit right away if someone wanted to steal/take copyright of my work (I talked to almost all other members of the group about this personaly, and I'm sure they'd do the same). The copyright is the right to display or copy a piece of work, only one juridical person can have the copyright. Without copyright, the artist can't even show his work to anyone." are there anymore options then the ones i've listed below: - the company has copyrights over all work done for game and allows the creators of the work to be able to have it in/on their portfolios/websites. or - the company could get a legal license from the creator of the work ? any help here would be greatly appreciated ;)

According to the U.S. Copyright office...

"In the case of works made for hire, the employer and not the employee is considered to be the author. Section 101 of the copyright law defines a "work made for hire" as:

(1) a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment; or
(2) a work specially ordered or commissioned for use as:
a contribution to a collective work
a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work
a translation
a supplementary work
a compilation
an instructional text
a test
answer material for a test
an atlas "

(Found here: http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#wccc)

Now, I'm not sure if that depends on if the 'employed' is being paid or not, but it seems to me that the copyright would have to fall under the company. However, that does not mean that one can not use that work to show off on their portfolio. I mean if you think about it, John Carmacks portfolio would be pretty empty except for some games he made as a kid back in the 80's if he couldnt use the examples becuase they were copyrighted by id (presuming he left id and lost his shares).

So, its seems your beaten by the law if your in the U.S., but that in no way damages the authors portfolio.

-Limb

edit: Err, make sure you capitilize and put periods in U.S. :/

I'm fairly certain that you can display your work even if you don't own the rights to it. You can't sell it or offer to use it in other products, but I don't see why you can't show somebody a copy of a game you contributed to.

Okay, there's pretty much two reasonable ways to go about this, I think.

1) If company wants the rights to the work, company needs to pay for the creation of the work. Pretty simple, if it's created on the company's time, it belongs to the company.

2) More realistically in an indie environment, company can't afford to pay for the creation of the work. Because of this, artist owns the work, can use it in portfolio's etc.

Now, the first one is great if you have money, because then it's very clean cut. The second one, however, its quite a bit more realistic.

Now, I'm assuming you're one of the company owners, and you don't want to have everyone put a bunch of effort into your game and have it get whisked away by someone deciding they don't want to be involved anymore. Entirely understandable. Here's a compromise I suggest (and all of this would have to be in a written contract). All parties involved own equal rights to the work. If anyone uses the work to produce something profitable, all parties are entitled to their ownership's share of the returns. This allows the company to proceed with developing the game without worry about losing the work (because they own it just as much as the creator does), while still allowing the creators to use the work in their portfolios.

Anyway, just my two cents. Biggest thing to keep in mind that a 'company' without money is virtually meaningless, so don't get very worked up about its ownership of anything, because if you do you're just going to end up with nothing.

Cheers!

well thanks for all the advice. =)
based off what you all said this is what im gonna go with,
"All work that is done for the company will still be copyrighted and owned by its creator. The creator gives full and exclusive rights that last forever, to the company, to use his/her work in future games and franchises of this company’s, which relate to the Vengeance Is War series. The company will retain copyright of all work done by the creator for this game once his/her cap has been reached. Once the company has the copyright of the work its creator can still include his/her work in their own portfolio."

so any comments? i just think it's now more so fair to both sides, in many ways.

First, the standard disclaimer: speak to a lawyer.

Now, personal opinion based on experiences both in dealing with hiring artists and working in a law firm for 15 years:

Anyone who agrees to work on behalf of your company, indy or not, whether they get paid or not, is doing work FOR the company - not themselves. You should have had everyone sign NDAs, if not a contract, and within either there should be language making it clear that anything they create for the company's products is owned by the company - not themselves.

If you allow them to keep full copyrights on works they're creating for your company you screw yourself, badly, if they leave. Scenario: you're making an RPG. Your artist comes up with the design for the main character and the world. You give them copyright over those designs. They leave the project. You no longer have the right to use those images anymore.

Even if the game is completed, you don't have the right to market the game with those images because you don't own the rights to them - the artist does. You need to get the rights from them to do anything.

Why in the name of every god above and below would you want to put yourself in that situation? :)

Your artists can absolutely display their work in their portfolios, since they're not SELLING the images, or using the images in another work for a different company. You, as a business owner, need to insure that your company retains the rights to the works created for it.

What you may want to do is offer limited license to the artists to use their created works for their own self-promotion, but they may not use these works in other media works (whether for profit or non-profit) without the express written consent of the company.