Equal rights for contractors?

There's a very interesting story/discussion on Slashdot, here.

What they're discussing is, when contractors are hired by an IT company, they are expected to perform as well as regular employees. Why then do they not get the same level of benefits? The discussion currently seems to be talking about American 'contractors', not the Indian outsourcing counterpart. Yet, once an Indian company (say Wipro) takes over a major portion of the work from the outsourcer, once it starts driving the architectural and marketing decision, it is going to to feel entitled to some portion of product revenues, IP benefits, and publicity. This, of course, goes against everything that defines 'outsourcing' today. However, we are moving towards that frontier, slowly but surely.