A work of authorship is automatically protected by copyright the moment it is created. At that same moment, someone becomes the owner of the copyright. If you pay an IC to create a copyrightable work on your behalf, you normally want to be the copyright owner. That will give you the exclusive right to copy, distribute and otherwise economically exploit the work. Without these rights, your ability to use the work will be very limited, even though you paid for it.
There are two ownership possibilities. Either:
- the work will be a work made for hire, in which case you will automatically be the copyright owner, or
- the work will not be a work made for hire, in which case the IC will initially own the copyright and you will have no ownership rights unless you specifically obtain them from the IC.