>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?

I _think_ you have to spell it out in the written contract, or it's assumed to be "work for hire", which belongs to the people who paid for it. Take this with a large grain of salt, as I don't know much on the subject....