Jurisdiction:
Area of Law:
A Copyright Assignment is required to convey the rights of a work that someone else has created. If you didn't create the work, then you don't own it unless it was created either by one of your employees within the scope of his or her duties or under a Work Made For Hire Agreement (search Free Legal Aid for this form if you need it). Thus, a Copyright Assignment form has a lot of power, and without it, you could be in trouble. In fact, if you hire a photographer to take your pictures, then he or she owns the copyright to those pictures unless an agreement like this one is signed. Without a Copyright Assignment, all you would get is a license to use the photos, not the underlying copyrights.