Getting Conflicting Answers...

Think of it as employee employer relationship. Are they employing you "salary, benefits, etc". If so, and your normal job duties include creating works, the copyright of those works fall to the company that employes you.

You can also create commissioned works where the copyright transfers to another. The list of circumstances is listed in this document. By my interpretation, you would retain copyright in this case, unless you are working for them in one of those specific situations.

http://copyright.gov/circs/circ09.pdf

Thanks Thomas! That is what I thought but I wanted to make sure I wasn't making an error.

The difference is outlined in the contract you and the buyer sign. Any business transaction should have a contract that states what will be delivered.

Thanks Edward!

For example, if you been hired to create a painting for a mother's day card by a greeting card company, you don't own the right for the image, But if a client commission you to do a painting as mother's day present you still own the right of that image.
Anyway, it always better to make this clear with the person commissioned you.

Thanks Alfred! I will be sure to talk to the patron.

A work for hire is when you sell your image outright with no restrictions or expectations about any further monies or royalties or license fees ever in the future. It is a REAL ... final sale of a product, ... like if you went out and bought a can of Spam - the Spam is now yours and yours alone forever to do what you will with it. You OWN the spam.

When you take on a work for hire, you sell ALL your expectations of any future rights to monetary gain from it. The sale of it is your ONLY monetary gain EVER.

A commission COULD be a work for hire, if your contract/agreement stated this. But it does not have to be. A commission merely means that you are hired to create an image (painting) for a particular person for a particular use by that person, and you retain ALL copyrights, ... meaning that you can paint/photo the image again, sell it again in any form, license it in any form at your will at any time simultaneously or in the future.

In one case you are getting paid for your intellectual property right as well as your image. In the other case, you are getting paid for only the image in its contracted use.

At least, that's how I understand it.

I tend to think that someone who wanted a commission would NOT want the image in a position to be duplicated. You just have to be clear about what you are doing in your own mind, and be willing to make this clear to whomever wants the commission. If they want all rights, and you are willing to work this way, then you basically are selling them the painting totally, forever. Chances are, the person who wants the commission sees it as a personal piece, and the idea of having it in a position to be mass produced would detract from this and discourage the whole deal.

The one commission that I have done [Okay, laugh], I would NOT put it in a position to be mass produced, unless I checked with the person for whom I did it, to see how he might feel about it. I don't think that I would put that image here for anybody to buy. I might consider certain licensing situations, like a book cover or magazine cover, but I would ask the person for whom I did the commission first, and probably I would have a credit note in the publication saying the name of the person whose art collection it was in (if the person felt comfortable with this).

Robert , I agree with you, for a commissioned painting even you own the copyright sometimes it just not right to sell reproductions of it, such as portrait of someone;s children or their nude portrait. LOL

Thanks Robert! I will discuss the matter with the patron.