[consulting] Copyright

[nan wich]

Well, Alex, as a developer, I love that wording. However, if I were the customer I would never sign such a contract. While I would probably allow you to contribute back to Drupal, that would be my decision, not yours to make.

Your analogy just doesn't make sense to me. I wouldn't even dream of claiming the tools I used for my own. But I can guarantee you that the author of that book will enforce his/her copyright to the contents. 

While working for someone else, I have now developed at least three modules that the general public might want. I have received permission from the companies that I wrote them for to submit them to DO. One is already live, and I have two more that need to be cleaned up before I can submit them. On the two most recent, the company doesn't even want attribution, although I think they deserve it.
 
Nancy E. Wichmann, PMP
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. -- Dr. Martin L. King, Jr.




________________________________
From: Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg <alex at zivtech.com>
To: A list for Drupal consultants and Drupal service/hosting providers <consulting at drupal.org>
Sent: Sat, April 24, 2010 11:16:09 AM
Subject: Re: [consulting] Copyright

While IANAL, here's a part of our standard contract that deals with this:
---

 Proprietary Rights. 
The Drupal software programs used by Consultant Firm, and all of the associated modules and themes installed on the Company Website are licensed under a GNU General Public License, and all code and techniques shall be licensed as the same and may be submitted back to the Drupal software community as the Consultant Firm sees fit. Nothing in this Agreement shall preclude the Consultant Firm from using in any manner or for any purpose it deems necessary the know-how, techniques or procedures acquired or used by Consultant Firm in the performance of the Website Services (the "Drupal-Related Techniques and Procedures"), and same shall remain Consultant Firm's sole and exclusive intellectual property.  To the extent necessary for operation of the Company Website, the Consultant Firm grants to the Company a non-exclusive and non-transferrable license to use the Drupal-Related Techniques and Procedures.---

In my opinion, a client that ask for IP rights over your Drupal related work is equivalent to an author writingThe Best Book of all Time on MS Office and then claiming that, because of their brilliant writing, they now own Office and everyone who uses Office must now pay them a royalty. They own the site, but the tools aren't theirs, and if they need IP rights over everything that runs their site/application then they shouldn't use Open Source. 

--
Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg
Partner | Business Lead
Zivtech, LLC
http://zivtech.com
alex at zivtech.com
office: (267) 940-7737
cell: (215) 866-8956



On Sat, Apr 24, 2010 at 7:48 AM, Jeremy Weiss <eccentric.one at gmail.com> wrote:

From Circular 9, by the US Copyright Office (www.copyright.gov/circs/circ09.pdf)
> 
>Under the 1976 Copyright Act as amended (title 17 of the United States Code),
>a work is protected by copyright from the time it is created in a fixed form. In
>other words, when a work is written down or otherwise set into tangible form,
>the copyright immediately becomes the property of the author who created it.
>Only the author or those deriving their rights from the author can rightfully
>claim copyright.
>Although the general rule is that the person who creates a work is the author
>of that work, there is an exception to that principle: the copyright law defines a
>category of works called “works made for hire.” If a work is “made for hire,” the
>employer, and not the employee, is considered the author. The employer may
>be a firm, an organization, or an individual.
>To understand the complex concept of a work made for hire, it is necessary
>to refer not only to the statutory definition but also to its interpretation in cases
>decided by courts.
> 
> 
>Basically, I've always been told by various attorney's that unless my agreement with a client specifically stated that it wasn't a work for made for hire situation, then it was. YMMV, IANAL, etc.
> 
>-jeremy 
> 
> 
> 
>From:consulting-bounces at drupal.org [mailto:consulting-bounces at drupal.org] On Behalf Of George Lee
>Sent: Saturday, April 24, 2010 7:55 AM
>To: consulting at drupal.org
>Subject: [consulting] Copyright
> 
>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?
>
>Peace, community, justice,
>- George
>_______________________________________________
>consulting mailing list
>consulting at drupal.org
>http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting
>
>
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