jimkyle
Btrieve Guy
Premium
join:2002-10-20
Oklahoma City, OK
 ·AT&T Southwest
| reply to Airplane777
Re: Sub-contracted software developer owning software ?
I've been a software developer full time since 1990 (and part time for years before that). When taking on any development task, I try to make it quite clear up front that in the absence of a written contract to the contrary, I'll retain ownership including copyright of all developed code, but my customer will have a perpetual license to use it. If the customer wants to distribute and/or sell the program, then we need a written contract spelling out exactly what each of us is committing to. That's for mutual protection; I've never yet gone to court over any contract and only rarely have we needed to have one.
Most of the custom development that I do, though, involves the customer describing what he wants to accomplish, and me figuring out how to do it. It sounds as if your situation is a bit different...
Note that copyright law is a bit murky in this area. The person creating the code holds automatic copyright to it, UNLESS it's a "work for hire" in which case the hiring entity owns the work. The murky area comes in determining just when a program is a "work for hire" and that's why a written contract is needed for mutual protection. Best that your boss spend a few bucks with an attorney who knows copyright law and find out exactly where he stands. Keep in mind that ideas, in themselves, cannot be copyrighted; only their expression (in this case, the code) can be. Once the idea is passed on to someone else, the cat is out of the bag...
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Jim Kyle |
