At 1:39 PM +0100 6/23/05, Ross Clutterbuck wrote: >I'm just talking from personal experience. On a few occassions I've tried to >protect my CD-ROM applications to stop my clients making copies but I have >always run foul of them because once I complete the work and they pay for it, >all ownership and rights pass over to them because they are employing me to >write their product for them. Therefore I am then unable to stop them copying >their own product.
This is not technically true. While in practice many clients like to look at it this way, under copyright law if you: 1. Create a work entirely yourself 2. Create it with your equipment and working at your own offices or location 3. Set your own hours in working on it (in other words, don't work as a supervised employee) 4. Have not signed a contract which explicitly states that you are creating "Work for Hire" The it MAY be true that even if you sell the work that the copyright to the work remains with you. From http://www.ibslaw.com/melon/archive/306_employment.html "The Copyright Act provides that the copyright in any work which qualifies for copyright protection is initially owned by the "author".i Basically, the "author" is the person who creates the work -- the person who translates an idea into a fixed, tangible expression entitled to copyright protection. I have heard the following misconception uttered by numerous well-intentioned and talented multimedia developers: "I paid them to create the ___________ (fill in the blank) portion of the product so I own all rights to their work contained in my final product." In fact, in this situation, the developer probably does not own the copyright unless appropriate steps are taken at the outset to secure those rights..." There are exceptions in the copyright law about this concerning "group works" and motion pictures, so the only real way to be sure about this issue is to consult an attorney. But you can also read up about the Work for Hire issue on the web: http://www.music-law.com/workforhire.html http://www.utsystem.edu/ogc/intellectualproperty/mmfruse.htm That said, it is a really good idea to get these kind of issues defined in a contract with the employer before any work is done. -- Randal [To remove yourself from this list, or to change to digest mode, go to http://www.penworks.com/lingo-l.cgi To post messages to the list, email [email protected] (Problems, email [EMAIL PROTECTED]). Lingo-L is for learning and helping with programming Lingo. Thanks!]
