[BNM] Intellectual property and copyright

[Richard Harrison]

Usual IANAL applies..

> completed on a fixed price basis and with no contract or any terms and
> conditions exchanged.
>
> The IPO is a little vague on the subject:
>   
The situation in this instance is that it is your copyright, unless you 
assign it to someone else. In this context I believe that 'assign' is a 
legally important word.
> If the commisioner had sent me an email asking me to confirm that they
> owned the IP and I replied saying yes, would this be seen as a legally
> binding contract?
>   
It depends on the wording, because they can not own the IP, they are 
many ways that you can assign your rights to them, in the strictest 
sense a restricted licence to use, or a perpetual transferrable licence, 
right up to the assignation of your rights under the Copyright, Designs 
and Patents Act 1988.

> In either situation, the commissioner has now asked me to delete all
> copies of the work and I'm reluctant to do so as it's always useful to
>   
If you have not assigned your rights specifically, and in writing, then 
they have no basis in law for this request.

emails are admissable as evidence, but in evidentiary terms are not as 
good as paper, and discretion/consideration may be applied which is not 
the case with a signed specific contractual agreement.
> keep an archive of all work and to be able to refer back to see how
> you did something.
>   
I never keep an archive of anything that I don't have the rights to do 
so, because it would place me professionally in a difficult position 
should I ever do something similar. So do the right thing, delete it, 
and as we all know the next version will be much better.

However if you were to keep a copy of your version of the source code 
for the purposes of evidence then that may be a suitable defence. If you 
need a recommendation let me know privately.

In all cases it is probably wise to ensure that you have a copyright 
notice in every module that you create.

All of the above is only valid for UK->UK situations, it gets a little 
more complicated when crossing any amount of water greater than 10 miles 
or so.

-- 
--Richard
http://www.zaretto.com