Running a business online is easier than ever before; with the help of online freelancers, business owners can get a lot done while saving money. The gig economy is booming, and there are 60+ million freelancers in U.S. according to the latest report from Upwork. However, working with freelancers can be sometimes very stressful, because you never could be sure that you will have your job done on time, the quality of your job etc. Here we will give you some stress management tips and on what to pay attention when working with freelancers. Some things must be takeninto consideration before posting a job on a freelance website. One of the most stressful situations about working with freelancers is how to protect your intellectual property. After all, you don’t want an employee, freelancer, or independent contractor who created the work to use it for purposes other than the one you hired them for. We will explain below what rights you have in the work that’s created for you by others, as well as how you can protect your work, idea, or invention from being used or sold by the freelancer creating the work on your behalf. Copyright your work In the United States, copyright law allows the creators of original works of art, such as literary works, graphic works, movies, songs, and books to control who makes, sells, and displays the work they’ve created. The ownership of work that is created “for hire,” belongs to the individual who commissioned the work and not the author. This is so because U.S copyright law states that “work made for hire” is owned by the party that commissioned the work. For example, if you have someone design a web page for you, write content for your website, or create a graphic for you, your work is automatically protected under U.S copyright law. The web page, content, or graphics produced will be owned by the party commissioning or paying the freelancer to create the work. Now suppose you have an employee who creates something on his own time, you do not own the work he creates unless there is a contractual agreement that states otherwise. However, if the work created by the employee is within the scope of his employment, his employer is considered to be the author of the work. So, what does that mean for you as someone who hires a freelancer or remote author? The freelancer who created the work does not have the right to sell or display the work he created for you. However, if the piece of work the freelancer created for you is extremely important, you should register it with the copyright office. The benefit of registering it as copyright is that you’ll be able to sue anyone who misuses your work for copyright infringement. This will deter anybody from reproducing your work without your authorization. Copyright Law protects artwork throughout the life of the author, plus an additional 70 years. Here are a few examples […]
