It's a complex situation, and taking advice from GFY is not a great idea.
In the US, at least, copyrightable content authored by a contractor or freelancer is normally owned by that contractor. There are specific rules which must be met in order for it to qualify as "Work done for hire" which would assign the copyright to the buyer:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Wikipedia
the work must come within one of the nine limited categories of works listed in the definition above, namely (1) a contribution to a collective work, (2) a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, (3) a translation, (4) a supplementary work, (5) a compilation, (6) an instructional text, (7) a test, (8) answer material for a test, (9) an atlas;
the work must be specially ordered or commissioned;
there must be a written agreement between the parties specifying that the work is a work made for hire.
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If your purchased application doesn't meet those rules, then the programmer has no legal obligation to release ownership/source code to you, unless you have made that requirement clear in your contract with them.
With that said, I think it would be foolish to not have made that stipulation for software. Unlike media content where the photo looks the same this year as it it will next year, software doesn't age very well.