Thirty years ago, Wal-Mart entered into a handshake deal with a video production company to producer and record manager and shareholder events. In 2006, Wal-Mart ended its relationship with the company. Now, the production company is making its catalog of 15,000 tapes available to anyone who comes calling.

How can the production company get away with this? Doesn’t Wal-Mart own the tapes and, more importantly, the copyright in the tapes’ content?

Wal-Mart might have some claim of ownership in the tapes (though for some reason they offered to buy them after this all happened), but they almost certainly don’t own the copyright in the content of the tapes. Why? Because whether you’re Wal-Mart or Joe’s local convenience store, without a written agreement to the contrary the independent contractor owns the copyright in the works he, she or it creates. So if you’re contemplating paying an independent contractor to design your company’s website, or write an article for your publication, or take photos for your marketing materials, you’ll want to present that contractor with a written contract spelling out the ownership issues, e.g., whether the contractor is assigning the copyright to you, or whether you’re licensing the work from the contractor. If you don’t, you lose the ability to use the materials as you see fit. (We’ve written on this topic previously)