"If there is no signed written agreement, then the work isn't for hire, and you start out with all the rights. If there is a written agreement, it should be entered into before you create the work. Beware of after-the-fact attempts to take away your rights by calling the work "for hire," for example by sending you a check whose endorsement line says that your signature is your agreement that the work was for hire."
Example + comment:
"This language is designed to grab all rights from a free-lance author or artist. The first clause purports to create a work for hire agreement, which would mean that the author has no rights left at all, ever (and cannot even get them back through the termination right). The second clause takes a belt-and-suspenders approach: if for any reason the work is not for hire -- which it would not be if the commissioned work did not fall within the statutory categories -- the author explicitly assigns all rights not only in this work, but in any work based on this work, for the full term of copyright, for the whole world."
"The Year of the MOOC
(...)
MOOCs have been around for a few years as collaborative techie learning events, but this is the year everyone wants in. Elite universities are partnering with Coursera at a furious pace. It now offers courses from 33 of the biggest names in postsecondary education, including Princeton, Brown, Columbia and Duke. In September, Google unleashed a MOOC-building online tool, and Stanford unveiled Class2Go with two courses. "
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