I pose the following question in order to get opinions, not legal advice. I realize most of the people here are programmers, not lawyers. I am merely soliciting personal opinions and experiences.

An independant programmer writes a program under a Verbal contract to XXX company per XXX's specifications, and is paid a certain sum of money to do this, and the programmer also declares the program Copyrited under the programmers name or business, ie: Copyrite 1998, MyBiz.

Who 'owns' the program?

Can XXX company give away or sell the program without the programmers permission?

Does the programmer retain all rights to the program?

anything else in this genre that might apply.

I am interested in any and all opinions.
TIA
Dan