[CLUE-Talk] [Fwd: Copy "rights"??]

[Jed S. Baer]

On Tue, 18 Nov 2003 19:02:23 -0700
Evan Widger <PsychoI3oy at linkline.com> wrote:

> 
> this was sent from a mailing list of former web students at my school, i
> thought someone here might have some useful information

Yeah. They need a good lawyer.

> We have a long-term client (two plus years of business) with whom we 
> have had a monthly retainer for work ("work for hire") who has reversed 
> a credit card payment to our company,  and we have documentation of the 
> agreement to pay and the time we logged in the month he is revoking the 
> credit card charge. We are currently in a process, following the 
> protocol with our merchant credit card service provider to recover the 
> charge. But I want to get firm info or advice about the web designers 
> rights to "take down" changes made to a site until payment is rec'd in 
> alignment with copyright ownership of original design and text.

IANAL, but I'd be leary of this. In a work-for-hire arrangement, the
client owns the copyright. Even with a contract dispute, where you could
claim that copyright wasn't transferred due to the client abrogating the
contract, I think you'd be on shaky ground, and taking the site down would
just give the client more leverage in any ensuing legal action. That's a
difficult business decision, because from the other point of view, taking
the site down could be seen as an incentive to get the client to "fess up"
and pay the bill.

This seems analagous to repossessing a vehicle.

But, if the whole site was delivered on a CD, you really aren't
accomplishing a lot by logging into the hosting provider and removing
things. The client still possesses the site, and can republish somewhere
you don't have access.

Having the site up and functioning provides evidence that the client
accepted delivery, and bolsters your argument for payment.

jed
-- 
... it is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday
facilitate a police state. -- Bruce Schneier