Shamil Salakhetdinov
shamil at SMSConsulting.spb.ru
Tue Dec 2 15:29:39 CST 2003
Thanks a lot for your answers, Rocky! > But in the U.S., in the absence of a contract specifying that the rights to the entire > work product belong to the customer, all of the rights to the work stay with > the developer and the customer is granted an implied license to use it. I thought the opposite is true worldwide? May I have a link where I can read this US law/regulation? Do you think it is the same in the West Europe? As far as I know (but now I will have to recheck) the opposite is true in Russia: - in the absence of a contract and if the developer was paid for the work for a software product all the rights belong to the customer. So the best strategy/tactics to work with your country customers and to have all my copyrigths preserved is to not sign any copyright agreements? :) Is that an often story? > I always work without a contract on a time and materials basis. You usually don't sign any contract with your customers? Well, I also often work based on gentlemen agreements but I thought this isn't that often for the long term projects. Did you have successfull long term projects without any actual agreements? TIA for additional information, Shamil ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rocky Smolin - Beach Access Software" <bchacc at san.rr.com> To: "Discussion of Hardware and Software issues" <dba-tech at databaseadvisors.com> Sent: Tuesday, December 02, 2003 6:52 PM Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] Software reselling and development agreements'samples... > Shamil: > > Not really responsive to your question but this is what I know: > > I always work without a contract on a time and materials basis. But in the > U.S., in the absence of a contract specifying that the rights to the entire > work product belong to the customer, all of the rights to the work stay with > the developer and the customer is granted an implied license to use it. > > I (like most of us, I think) include lots of my own code in every product so > we don't want to be giving away the rights to that. > > Now this works well for my customers, none of whom are in the software > business, and don't want to own the code, much less resell it. > > But if you're going to develop a product for someone who wants to resell it > then they will probably want a clear title to all of it. > > So then you have to negotiate. This is where a boilerplate agreement of > your won, written entirely in your favor, can provide a good starting point. > > If you tell them that they can save a lot of money with you by you using > lots of your own code, and on the other hand of they insist on owning all > the code, then you have to write everything from scratch, they might strike > a better deal. At a minimum, if you are going to incorporate your own > library into a product, you want a contract that leaves you free to re-use > that code. You don't want title to it to pass to your customer. > > As for non-compete clauses, the one time I was involved with that, I learned > that in this country they are almost impossible to enforce. Since they are > impossible to write with any precision, the buyer has to watch the seller > (or developer) and, if they think the seller is competing with them then > they have to sue and let the court decide if their case has merit - an > approach with its own high initial cost, and in the U.S. anyway, a very high > risk of losing. > > So that doesn't answer your question but HTH anyway. > > Regards, > > Rocky Smolin > Beach Access Software > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Shamil Salakhetdinov" <shamil-users at mns.ru> > To: "dba - Tech" <dba-tech at databaseadvisors.com> > Sent: Tuesday, December 02, 2003 5:50 AM > Subject: [dba-Tech] Software reselling and development agreements' > samples... > > > > Hi All, > > > > If anybody has some typical subject's docs could you please e-mail them > > to me? > > What I need is a kind of contracting agreement defining conditions under > > which a programmer works for a company writing new code and making > > her/his own code invested in the products of this company. I wanted to > > keep copyright on my own invested code(which I wasn't paid for by the > > company) and algorithms to maybe reuse them in my own products - all > > the agreements I've seen so far are very limiting programmers' rights to > > reuse such code IMO. > > > > I wanted also to have clearly defined a "direct competition" term - what > > can be considered as a direct competition with a software product on the > > market? Should it be the one having, say, 80% of the features of the > > another product or...? > > > > If I use just part of the code of the software of the other company I > > work for (which I allowed to use in my own products) how can I avoid to > > go into direct competition with this company? - I don't want and I don't > > plan to compete with it but I'm not sure I understand what "direct > > competition" term means in details. Could you please shed some light on > > this question? > > > > TIA, > > Shamil > > > > -- > > e-mail: shamil at smsconsulting.spb.ru > > Web: http://smsconsulting.spb.ru/shamil_s > > > > _______________________________________________ > > dba-Tech mailing list > > dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com > > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech > > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com > > > > _______________________________________________ > dba-Tech mailing list > dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com