Scripts Copyright!

Recently,i do a project for someone,After complishment,i found he was selling this script to more people.
There are some details below:
1.We don't discuss the copyright before doing this project.
2.I don't work from scratch strictly to his guidelines,before he let me develop this project,i have a working demo,but he want to add/change some feature.And mainly most feature of this project has been done before custom for him.
3.He said he tell me details of features and i get his idea to do this project.
But i think he only give me a command to do what.I have got lots of details from another site,my script is a clone of this site.
4.I accept his project via scriptlance.com,i don't know what relationship between us,hire as his stuff,or something.

If you need more details,please request here.

Hope professtional response,because now i am selling it as my script,and i develop more feature for it.I want to give my clients a answer about the copyright.

Thanks!

 

Any suggestion?

 

This time you probably got scammed, but for the next time/project: make up a contract that states that whatever you produce is intended for your client and use by your client, not for retail. Source code remains yours. He buys the 'rights to use this piece of software till the end of days' but not 'the right to sell or resell the software'.

If he then still sells the software, let him have a go at it for a couple of months. Get a lawyer and claim the profits, (I am not one , so do not take my word for it) but you will have a good chance to win that case.

If someone wants to rip you off, they will. just make sure you have the opportunity to get even!

 

How smart is he? If he is not very smart scam him! Pass on some fake laws to him saying either

1. You must recive a percentage
2. He must stop selling

What did he say when you contacted him?

 

I don't say to him to stop selling,But he try to stop me to sell script!
His friend PM me that i had better stop selling,It voliate Laws of US.I am not from US.I don't know the Laws of US,so i post here.

More details is here:
My post in WHT,this is more details of this issue:
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=429436

 

Basically, if you signed a document assigning him the copright for the script, he's perfectly entitled to sell it and stop your from doing so.

If, however, you have signed nothing, then the copyright remains with you, and you can stop him from selling it.

 

What exactly do you have copyrighted?

 

Well if this was a specific work done for him as a "work for hire" then the copyright belongs to him. Sorry but you shouldn't be selling copies of something he paid you to make. That's my opinion. You should have stipulated in the project his license. Otherwise you did the work for him and he can do what he likes. You can of course attempt to take him to court over the issue and imho it can go either way. I am sure others will disagree with me. I personally think you both messed up and most likely you should just sell it and so should he and legally you will both be just on each other.

 

i don't assign any document or something with him.And it is a common freelance job at scriptlance,he accept me and then i worked for him and completed it.
I don't think i am hired by him.I think "work for hire" should be specified by both party.
Because i work full time for a spanish company,before work,we specified it is full time job and what salary i want.I think it should be "work for hire".

 

Well anyone can claim anything and the fact that you didn't make him sign a document only makes it worse. He can claim that you agreed for this to be a work for hire verbally or in an aim chat or however. Personally I think you have very little legal ground to stand on since he did hire you to create the work. What did you tell him he can and can't do with it??? When you program for a person do you think they are gonna print it and hang it on their wall? Cmon guy wise up. Take this as a lesson learned and next time be smart.

 

As far as I was aware the copyright to any work always stays with the maker/artist unless it is expressly passed across, normally this statement is included by default at rentacoder I dont know about scriptlance.

Even if you commission an artist to paint you for example the copyright to the painting remains with the artist.

That is my understanding of the copyright law.

In saying that its bad business practice to do work for someone who pays you and then take that work and compete against them

 

Yeah I think legally if he could show some proof of their agreement then he would have a better standing. Is he in the right...yeah I think so. Do I think legally he should pursue this...nope because it's a toss up if he wins. It would mean he needs a better lawyer than the other guy. Also if you are in 2 different countries you might as well just forget it. Sure it pisses you off but honestly there is little you can do.

And yeah it's bad form to do work for someone and then go and sell it to another person. If the buyer of your work posted here about what you were doing I am sure he would get a lot of support here. There are 2 sides to every story. Your English is not that great and it's easy to say there was a miscommunication.

 

I have modified a lot about my script.What i am selling is not the same version he buys.And i said this script is amost done when i accept his project and begin to work with him.I have developed it since last year.

I think It is unfair to say that i work for someone and then sell it to others.It is in my plan to sell this script at my site.I am developing addon script from scratch.I think i have the ablity to programming and the knowlege is my own.I can continue to do more job with them.I don't think when i do a project for someone,then i can't do simliar job again.

It is bad to sell the same script to others when this script is completely or partly done for others.Now i have stoped to do any similar script for others.I focus all my attension on my script and rewrited parts of code and make it a totally own script.

 

There ya go. Now you see the light.

As a programmer you should have the ability to do any project again from scratch without using the same exact code sold off to another person. Glad to hear you're thinking this out now.

 

I have never hired anyone from Scriptlance only from rentacoder but on all their Bid requests they have the part below already added into the bid to protect the buyer:

You may want to check for something similar on scriptlance

 

I inquery Scriptlance.com,here is their response:

 

Look out one complete swindler