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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