[consulting] Copyright

[Eric Goldhagen]

At 8:55 AM -0400 4/24/10, George Lee wrote:
>Hi,
>
>When folks are doing contract work developing modules, is it typical 
>to retain copyright over code or to give copyright to the folks who 
>are contracting out to you? Do folks have legal contract language 
>for both scenarios?
>

We stipulate that all code is released under the GPL, so it does not 
matter who owns the copywrite. If the code is GPL, even if the client 
is the copywrite owner, I still get to re-use and contribute that 
code back.

We also make it explicit in contracts that our handing code over to 
the client at the end of a project is considered distribution, and 
thereby requires sharing the code. (Of course this does not include 
any private or proprietary information or graphics, etc that the 
client already controls under non-free licenses)

"Work For Hire" agreements are aimed at masking the reality of code 
creation and distribution. In fact, the person doing the work has no 
right to re-use their own code or publicly take credit for its 
creation. As such, I consider Work For Hire agreements as being 
explicitly in violation of the GPL and will never sign any contract 
that contains such an agreement.

--Eric
-- 
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Openflows, Inc.
a technology workers cooperative
http://openflows.com
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