Does a: Work-for-Hire contract exist?

You aren't going to be paid anything... Not a penny...
Even if the contract makes no mention of payment...

(And this is where the area kinda greys out...)
For a work based placement?

Is their any Legislation in place?

As you are all aware, the employer in a Work-For-Hire contract owns the copyright to any works made for them.

So my question is...

What are the guidelines, stipulations or legislation for a Work-For-Hire contract.

To be a valid contract (in US law), the contract must contain both an offer and consideration. This means that something must be exchanged. If I drew up a contract saying that I would pay you $1000 tomorrow and signed it, I would have no legal obligation to actually do it because it is not a legally binding contract. There is no real legal distinction between working for goods and money; consideration is consideration no matter what it is.

The five things that must be in a contract to be valid are:
Offer
Acceptance
Consideration (the mutual promise given the the offered)
Mental competency
Legal subject matter

So if you sign a contract to do work for them with nothing in return, it is not enforcible, either party could walk away at any time.

Where does that leave the ownership of copyright?

Are there any precedents set?

(Shouldn't this be in the legal section of the forums?)

Originally Posted by Marx-Man Where does that leave the ownership of copyright? Are there any precedents set?

The copyright would likely stay with the creator since the contract which gives the copyright to the company is void. The courts could go either way, there probably has been some case on it, but I do not know of it.

What about the Geneva convention... (EU law abolishing slavery?) Would that apply...

Because we are students... this is a massive Grey area...

But I am pretty sure that you can't actually have a non-paid work placement or can you?

Originally Posted by Marx-Man What about the Geneva convention... (EU law abolishing slavery?) Would that apply...

That was not a contract, and US law would not apply to it one way or another.

Originally Posted by Marx-Man Because we are students... this is a massive Grey area... But I am pretty sure that you can't actually have a non-paid work placement or can you?

You can't have a contract without a mutual exchange, so that would be correct. If you want real legal advice, talk to a lawyer. I am just a web programmer who knows a lot about law. And if you are not working in the US, I haven't the slightest clue about your situation since our laws could be completely and totally different.