A work made for hire, in copyright law in the United States, is a work that is subject to copyright and is created by employees as part of their job or some limited types of works for which all parties agree in writing to the WFH designation. Work for hire is a statutorily defined term and so a work for hire is not created merely because parties to an agreement state that the work is a work for hire. It is an exception to the general rule that the person who actually creates a work is the legally-recognized author of that work. In the United States and certain other copyright jurisdictions, if a work is "made for hire," the employer, not the employee, is considered the legal author. In some countries, this is known as corporate authorship. The entity serving as an employer may be a corporation or other legal entity, an organization, or an individual.
Freelance, freelancer, or freelance worker, are terms commonly used for a person who is self-employed and not necessarily committed to a particular employer long-term. Freelance workers are sometimes represented by a company or a temporary agency that resells freelance labor to clients; others work independently or use professional associations or websites to get work.
A subcontractor is a person or business which undertakes to perform part or all of the obligations of another's contract, and a subcontract is a contract which assigns part of an existing contract to a subcontractor.
An independent contractor is a person, business, or corporation that provides goods or services under a written contract or a verbal agreement. Unlike employees, independent contractors do not work regularly for an employer but work as required, when they may be subject to law of agency. Independent contractors are usually paid on a freelance basis. Contractors often work through a limited company or franchise, which they themselves own, or may work through an umbrella company.
A professional employer organisation (PEO) is an outsourcing firm that provides services to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Typically, the PEO offering may include human resource consulting, safety and risk mitigation services, payroll processing, employer payroll tax filing, workers' compensation insurance, health benefits, employers' practice and liability insurance (EPLI), retirement vehicles, regulatory compliance assistance, workforce management technology, and training and development. The PEO enters into a contractual co-employment agreement with its clientele. Through co-employment, the PEO becomes the employer of record (EoR) for tax purposes through filing payroll taxes under its own tax identification numbers. As the legal employer, the PEO is responsible for withholding proper taxes, paying unemployment insurance taxes and providing workers’ compensation coverage.
A contractor or builder, is responsible for the day-to-day oversight of a construction site, management of vendors and trades, and the communication of information to all involved parties throughout the course of a building project.
Construction management (CM) aims to control the quality of a project's scope, time, and cost to maximize the project owner's satisfaction. It uses project management techniques and software to oversee the planning, design, construction and closeout of a construction project safely, on time, on budget and within specifications.
Guru.com is a freelance marketplace. It allows companies to find freelance workers for commissioned work. Founded in 1998 and headquartered in Pittsburgh, Guru was initially known as eMoonlighter.com.
Upwork Global Inc., formerly Elance-oDesk, is an American freelancing platform headquartered in Santa Clara and San Francisco, California. The company was formed in 2013 as Elance-oDesk after the merger of Elance Inc. and oDesk Corp. The merged company was subsequently rebranded as Upwork in 2015.
A vendor management system (VMS) is an Internet-enabled, often Web-based application that acts as a mechanism for business to manage and procure staffing services – temporary, and, in some cases, permanent placement services – as well as outside contract or contingent labor. Typical features of a VMS application include order distribution, consolidated billing and significant enhancements in reporting capability that outperforms manual systems and processes.
Freelancer is an Australian freelance marketplace website, which allows potential employers to post jobs that freelancers can then bid to complete. Founded in 2009, its headquarters is located in Sydney, Australia, though it also has offices in Vancouver, London, Buenos Aires, Manila, and Jakarta.
E-lancing, also known as e-labour, is the practice of taking freelancing work through online job offers. E-lancing websites or platforms operate as hubs where employers place tasks, which freelancers from around the world bid for. Some e-lancing websites act as intermediaries for payment, paying the freelancer directly after work is completed, to mitigate the risk of non-payment. Employers posting work on these websites set the price they are willing to pay for the task proposed.
Shiply is a UK-based limited company providing an internet marketplace where transport service requesters may list items they need to move, and where providers of transport services can bid in a reverse auction format. The website attracts a variety of transport providers, including vehicle shipping companies, household movers, general freight transporters, and other types of logistics companies that essentially look for jobs via the Shiply Load board, where users (customers) are posting moving requests that the providers can then bid on. The customer can then sift through the prospective bids on their posted request, and select a provider they are comfortable with. Shiply got it's start back in 2008 in the United Kingdom, but eventually expanded to several additional countries including the USA and Canada.
Fiverr is an Israeli multinational online marketplace for freelance services. Fiverr's platform connects freelancers (sellers) to people or businesses looking to hire (buyers), encouraging a wide range of services in a free market. Fiverr takes its name from the $5 asking price attached to all tasks when the company was founded in 2010 in Tel Aviv, though many sellers now charge more.
Microwork is a series of many small tasks which together comprise a large unified project, and it is completed by many people over the Internet. Microwork is considered the smallest unit of work in a virtual assembly line. It is most often used to describe tasks for which no efficient algorithm has been devised, and require human intelligence to complete reliably. The term was developed in 2008 by Leila Chirayath Janah of Samasource.
A micro job is a small paid freelance task selected from a centralized platform. The practice of working micro jobs is called microemployment, and people doing micro jobs are called microemployees. These jobs can be online or in-person: for example, acting as a virtual assistant, handyman, or nanny; or doing website design, dog boarding, or errands. Personal income varies depending on the jobs taken and the fee charged by the platform offering the jobs.
Ian Ippolito is an American serial entrepreneur and the founder of numerous tech companies. He is best known as the founder of vWorker, an online portal for outsourcing computer virtual work projects. vWorker was purchased by Freelancer.com in 2013 for an undisclosed price in the millions of dollars. Ippolito is also the founder of the first open-source website and a financial investment site called The Real Estate Crowdfunding Review. As an entrepreneur, he has been featured in and provided commentary for numerous publications and media outlets including Forbes, Entrepreneur, The Wall Street Journal, as well as Fox and CBS News.
Projects.co.id is an Indonesian freelance and digital goods marketplace which allows project owners and employers to meet potential freelancers. Founded in 2014, Projects.co.id provides a platform for job hunter and digital product seller in the e-commerce platform in a variety of categories.
Nomad Health is an online marketplace that directly connects physicians, nurses, and medical facilities for healthcare jobs, without the involvement of third party employment agencies. Nomad Health is based in New York City.
California Assembly Bill 5 or AB 5 is a state statute that expands a landmark Supreme Court of California case from 2018, Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court ("Dynamex"). In that case, the court held that most wage-earning workers are employees and ought to be classified as such, and that the burden of proof for classifying individuals as independent contractors belongs to the hiring entity. AB 5 extends that decision to all workers. It entitles them to be classified as employees with the usual labor protections, such as minimum wage laws, sick leave, and unemployment and workers' compensation benefits, which do not apply to independent contractors. Concerns over employee misclassification, especially in the gig economy, drove support for the bill, but it remains divisive.
