Re: do we have to give up our programming to a competitor

On a smaller scale ...

I just went through a similar situation. After designing a site for a
Realtor in my town (and not having a contract with this person) I got a
pretty good burn.

While said realtor still owed me 30% of the agreed price of development,
he called me on the phone and requested that I give him the user name
and password to the server his site was being hosted on, because he had
someone else (the son of a friend of his) that was going to be taking
over the development and maintenece of the site. After getting over the
initial shock of the timing of his question, we agreed that he would be
entitled to no such thing until after he had payed for the current
develpment in full.

I actually attempted to talk him out of screwing up what I had created.
He did not listen. He told me this other person was just as capable of
web development as I was, in his opinion, and there was nothing more to
discuss. He made his last payment and he got the access info. 

(Actually, my hosting company was right-on, in that when I called them
and informed them of the situation they created another account for him
and sent him an email telling him he had not paid for his hosting. When
Realtor guy called them, they told him since he was no longer hosting
through me, he would have to create and maintain his own account.) 

Needless to say, his site is mucho broken right now. He has not changed
any of the code, and his php structures are off big time. Looking at his
new code, his "replacement" is using Frontpage 98. Ironically, the only
page that will load is the homepage. 

It has been 3 days since he 'upgraded' to Mr. Frontpage 98. I would like
to be a fly on the wall when his clients start calling and demand their
listing money back, since part of his draw was the ability to list their
houses on the site.

My point in this. Give this former client what they deserve. I gave mine
all the code and they couldn't do anything with it. I would suggest to
you that you give yours the output. After all, they only paid for
results. I leave it up to you, but I would not give them access to
anything that could compromise your relationships with other clients.
Your paying and loyal clients have entrusted you with the access to
their sensitive information. I can't see anyone forcing you to
compromise that.

Be confident in your ability to do a better job than your competition.
Let your competitor deal with the headache of this client. You find
another client (maybe one of your competitors clients is not happy with
them and could be easily swayed to go with you instead).
  
At any rate, move on. And when the client calls asking to get the site
working like it was.. charge double.. and get a CONTRACT!


My $0.02

-- 
ThinKer

email: thinker(at)thoughtprogress.com
web: http://thoughtprogress.com
--------------------------------------------
...fear controls knowledge controls fear ...
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On Tue, 2003-04-22 at 08:08, Bob Laurence wrote:
> Hi group
> 
> Here is the question: I hope this can be answered on this forum as it is
> going to cost me money to get a lawyer to protect my rights.
> 
>  I have a client that I developed a website for and I have filed copyright
> registration for that site.
> 
> She now wants to move the site including access to my MySQL database, that
> is
> shared with all of my clients, to another server.
> 
>  I have refused to give any of my programming to a competitor and specially
> I will not give access to the database where all of my clients important
> info is stored such as credit card #'s and such.
> 
> The site is  developed using database and custom perl programming with
> content management for the admin of that site.
> 
> The site works great where it is, but she now wants so consolidate her
> Internet
> costs to one provider. I am now being sued by her to pay for a new site
> because I will not give her all of the programming that makes her site work
> as it does now to the new host. I have agreed to give her the template and
> make
> an absolute link back to my server to protect the security of my other
> clients and to also protect my intellectual copyrights in the programming.
> If I gave up this programming to my competitor it give them an unfair leap
> ahead in their web dev services.
> 
> So in essence the site would work as it does now and be transparent to the
> end user that the programming and database is still on my server.
> 
> I have asked the new guy to sign a letter of non compete and non disclosure
> if I release these programs and have also offered to host the site for FREE
> for 2 years where it is. He has refused
> 
> So the question is can a client dictate that the current developer has to
> pay for a new site if he does not release all rights of the site to the
> client?
> 
> bob
> 
> 
> 
> 

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