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Handling IP Ownership Issues In Remote Work
It is no secret that the daily lives of U.S. employees have changed drastically since 2020. Hybrid or fully remote work arrangements, plus temporary or permanent relocation, have blurred lines and shifted norms around how and where employees perform work. These changes present numerous administrational and legal challenges to entertainment-industry employers. Significantly, the changes have also necessitated new practices and policies to ensure that employers own and retain all necessary rights in intellectual property that workers who classify as "employees" create.
A key step to ensure that industry employers own the intellectual property is having employees sign agreements that assign to the employer all intellectual property created in the course of employment. But even when assignments are broadly drafted in favor of the employer, various state laws prohibit or restrict assignments for some intellectual property created outside of work hours and without use of employer resources. Several of these laws require that employee assignment agreements include the relevant excerpts from such state statutes or risk being deemed void.
The following discussion highlights how the changing concept of "work" may jeopardize employers' ownership of intellectual property, focusing on the requirements of specific state statutes and suggesting changes employers can take to avoid footfalls. Certain issues raised in this analysis may similarly apply to independent contractors and individuals located outside the United States, though that is beyond the scope of this discussion.
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