Program Ownership (Copyright Laws)

[tehsolace]

Lets say Company A has been paying Company B to produce a program for Company A's store. Company A now sees the value of the program and wants to sell it to the other franchisees located in town. Does Company A have distribution and ownership rights to the program or does Company B? The work has not been under contract and there is currently no patent for the idea or program.

Furthermore, lets say just one programmer in Company B has been the author of the program. Does that single programmer own the rights to it?

 

[Naudian]

No yes?

 

[staticprimer]

I think it would go to company B in the case of no contract. I could be wrong though. For the second question, the software belongs to the company unless the programmer's employment contract specifically says otherwise.

 

[Glirk Dient]

Company A was employing company B. Therefor company B was working under A which means A owns everything that B produces while under their employment.

 

[Stigmata]

Not if there's no contract.

It goes to Company B. If only one coder in B authored the program, that coder gets sole control - but again, only if it wasn't authored under some sort of team-control contract or something similar, which it likely was, so ignore this

 

[tehsolace]

I say again there was NO signed or verbal contract regarding ownership. The only legal agreements were a verbal contract to "program what we specify."

Is this enough to dictate that Company B was working under Company A and therefore Company A owns everything?

 

[Link]

Did company A pay company B to produce it, or did company B get a share of the profits?

If they were paid to produce it, they were essentially working for A, meaning it belongs to A.
If they made it themselves and then charged per unit, its theirs.

 

[Remus]

If they were paid to produce it, they were essentially working for A, meaning it belongs to A.

Why? There was no written agreement or contract, so company B could go right ahead and patent the program. Therefor the rights to the program belonging to them.

 

[kirovman]

Depends who files the patent first!

 

[tehsolace]

There was a verbal agreement to work. Is that a legal contract?

 

[Solaris]

There was a verbal agreement to work. Is that a legal contract?

Not in the USA.