For early stage technology companies the definitions of
independent contractor and employee for determining copyright
ownership may have changed. In a case that could alter the
landscape as to who is considered an employee when it comes to
"work for hire" and copyright ownership in the world of
technology based start-ups, the United States Court of Appeals for
the Ninth Circuit relaxed the rules on who is considered an
employee versus an independent contractor for the purposes of
considering where work is considered a "work for hire."
In JustMed, Inc. v. Byce, 2010 U.S. App. LEXIS 6976 (9th
Cir. Apr. 5, 2010), the Ninth Circuit was asked to decide whether
JustMed, Inc., a small technology start-up company, or Michael
Byce, a software developer working remotely, owned the source code
that Byce engineered while working for JustMed.
