[thelist] Intellectual property on source files

Andy Warwick andy.war at ntlworld.com
Thu Jan 25 12:26:41 CST 2001


on 25/1/01 4:45 pm, Stephen Barber at stephen at sodium.co.uk wrote:

Stephen

When faced with an issue like this, it is often helpful to apply the same
train of logic to another industry (usually the client's own). You don't
state if this is a particular client, or what they do, but let us - for the
sake of argument - assume they are a car manufacturer.

The question/issue then becomes if I have bought a car from you, does that
entitle me to all of the blueprints, documentation, machining tools, etc
(the source files) that were used in the construction of the car (the
deliverable flash file). It is fairly obvious the answer, IMHO, is no.

Often the issue is that they want to do their own amendments to the files,
often for cost issues, In this case, it's like asking Ford to give you all
the machining tools and blueprints, so that you can get Nissan to make the
car at a cheaper price, without all the R&D and testing costs involved.

To put it slightly more in the realm of "art" and subjective stuff - that
our industry arguably has more in common with - it's like asking the artist
of a portrait to hand over all his sketches, initial attempts and even his
paint and brushes. Given that De Vinci sketches sell for many millions, I
would say - as a general principle - that your clients are perfectly
entitled to source files if that has been agreed, either up front or after
the event, and that an additional charge may be made.

Just a rule of thumb, YMMV.

Regards

Andy W

> Does anyone on the list have any experience with clients asking for source
> files to work that they have carried out? I am aware that this question is
> more or less subject to what is stated in project contracts etc, but I was
> wondering how other designers / developers dealt with this kind of thing?
> 
> My own opinion is that yes, the client has paid for a product, which has
> been delivered, but this does not entitle them to be able to change either
> the design elements of the product (in this case a Flash movie) without the
> permission of our company, or have access to the code that makes it work.
> 
> Is this a generally accepted way of working? Or do you think that, as they
> have paid for us to do the work, they should have access to all of the raw
> materials?
> 
> Thanks for any views/experience that you can share!
> 
> Stephen





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