In reality, it is almost always spelled out in the contract as to which party has copyright ownership. It is usually only overlooked (and hence defaults to the developer) by small businesses. In the case of the government (I've been on both sides on that one) it is ALWAYS spelled out and the party doing the development only gets ownership if they will not do the development wihtout it, they meet all other govt contractor requirements, and the govt really wants it done by that company (this is sometimes the case). Even govt employees have paperwork that spells out that any work done on govt time belongs to the government and not to the individual. Sometimes govt employees don't read the fine print or don't read the actual regulation their employment agreement refers to which actually spells it out. They are typically DOD, DA, etc pamplets that spell all of that out-sometimes regs.

Tracy

>>Without a signed agreement, ownership of the copyright defaults to the author.
>>
>>>>With custom made applications who owns the copyright, the software developer or the entity who paid for such software to be developed. Is there any difference with general software applications and custom made ones with regards to who owns the copyright?
>>>
>>>Everything depend on contract agreement.
>>>Usually copyrights are ownership of investor who pay development of the software.
>
>I am wondered, which investor will fully pay development of the some software product without the ownership of the copyright?
>If this is possible in USA, I will be glad to work for any american investor as a contractor or consultant.