Hi Fred, <div><br></div><div>obligatory disclaimer: IANAL </div><div><br></div><div>Based on your agreement of 100% payment on delivery, that would generally follow that you aren't able to use any of the work until its paid for in full. Often times there is specific clauses in a contract about if and when IP transfers in a work-for-hire situation. </div>
<div><br></div><div>The short answer is that you shouldn't use his work unless you negotiate some form of partial payment. </div><div><br></div><div>I'm sure its tempting to use the work and you probably feel like his failure to deliver has cost you time, even if you don't have to pay him now, but I have been on both sides and I think it would be unethical regardless of what your contractual obligations are. The fairest path forward is to negotiate a partial payment with him for the work to date and then proceed as you wish. </div>
<div><br></div><div>Cheers, </div><div>Ryan <br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Mar 1, 2013 at 12:25 AM, Fred Jones <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:fredthejonester@gmail.com" target="_blank">fredthejonester@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">A question of legality and ethics: I hired an outsourcer (from<br>
<a href="http://freelancer.com" target="_blank">freelancer.com</a>) to make a D7 theme. The deal was crystal clear that he<br>
has until the deadline to finish it 100% or I pay nothing and he<br>
agreed to that.<br>
<br>
He has done about 80-85% of it but no more than that. So I will not<br>
pay him and that's that.<br>
<br>
But he put in download links on the Appearance page and so I<br>
downloaded his work and I have it. I could now finish it myself and<br>
hire another person to finish it and pay them $100 instead of the $500<br>
that he was supposed to get.<br>
<br>
Question is should I just take it and run because we never clarified<br>
who owns anything and he *did* make it downloadable. Or perhaps I<br>
should tell him that I will pay him $100 and take his code and if he<br>
accepts, then OK.<br>
<br>
I don't want to continue with him because he clearly can not finish<br>
the job--he keeps asking me to review it and the dropdown menus are<br>
wrong each time plus 30 other details that he just can't get right.<br>
<br>
Thanks for any thoughts.<br>
<br>
Fred<br>
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</blockquote></div><br></div>