Comment Re:Contract: No! (Score 1) 353
I made a pretty good living for about a decade doing almost exactly that (although mostly those were not web sites.)
I would get paid to write all of the software to run their business, then go around to their competitors and sell it to as many of them as I could. I determined pricing partially by how many people I thought I could sell it to.
For an example that is not programming, look at the articles that get reprinted on Wired, Ars, and a bunch of other sites. This happens because the author owns the work. While Wired may pay someone to write it, the author is absolutely within their rights to then go shop it around to other sites.
If somebody pays you to as an independent contractor to write a book or produce a painting you own it. The person paying only gets a copy of the work, not the copyright.