Bad advice, corrected · checked 19 October 2026
You paid for the code. Without a signed assignment, the contractor still owns it.
The U.S. Copyright Office says website owners often assume they own code because they paid for it. Unless the work was made for hire or the copyright was assigned in writing, they don't.
The short version
Under U.S. copyright law, code a contractor writes usually isn't "work made for hire." The contractor owns it, even after you pay.
Only employees' work, and nine listed kinds of commissioned work, can be work for hire. Software isn't on that list.
The fix is a written assignment, signed by the contractor. Check your contract for one before you pay.
Sources
Checked on 19 October 2026.
"Website owners frequently assume that they own the copyright in code or other content that was created for them by an independent contractor, because the owner paid for the content or paid the contractor to create that material. In such cases, the website owner does not own the content unless the contractor agreed to create the content pursuant to a work made for hire agreement or executed a written agreement that assigned the copyright in that material to the website owner."
Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices, Third Edition, chapter 1000. Section 1009.7. Dated 28 January 2021. "a work specially ordered or commissioned for use as a contribution to a collective work, as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, as a translation, as a supplementary work, as a compilation, as an instructional text, as a test, as answer material for a test, or as an atlas, if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire."
17 U.S.C. section 101, definition of work made for hire. Part (2), the nine categories of commissioned work. "A transfer of copyright ownership, other than by operation of law, is not valid unless an instrument of conveyance, or a note or memorandum of the transfer, is in writing and signed by the owner of the rights conveyed or such owner's duly authorized agent."
17 U.S.C. section 204(a). Execution of transfers of copyright ownership.
Work made for hire also covers work an employee prepares within the scope of their employment (17 U.S.C. 101, part 1). This is federal law, so it applies in every state.
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Psst is made by Zain Ali, who founded ivector, a software company.