Flash Site Design - Who Owns The Rights To The FLA Source File? Designer or Client?

Author

Who Owns The Rights To The FLA Source File? Designer or Client?

John Williams

2005-05-22, 4:14 am

Hi,

I had a discussion with a friend of mine today about "Who Owns The Rights To The Flash Source Files??"

I am amultimedia web designer. I am very creative and professional with the web sites I design. I produce pretty good work. I design each site so that the client can update their content via external text files. And their images are also dynamic. I make as easy as possible for my clients to update their own sites.

I'd like to hear what designer's here have to say about this topic. Do you give your source files to your clients? Do you believe that you own the rights to your source files? I write in my contracts that they have the rights to their SWF files. I have worked too hard to be on the level that I am on to just hand my skillset and creativity over like that. In my opinion, the client bought an end product.

Photography
- Most photographers DO NOT give their negatives away

Tailoring
- Tailors DO NOT give their patterns away

Chefs
- Chefs DO NOT have to give their recipes away

Does this make sense?

John

Jeckyl

2005-05-22, 7:33 am

Generally you own it, and its up to you to decide what to do with it. Unless of course you are an employee of a company (rather than them being your client) in which case the source belongs to the company etc. Of course, it all depends on the laws in your particular country.
--
Jeckyl

tralfaz

2005-05-22, 7:21 pm

"John Williams" <chicagowebdesigner@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:d6p96s$8va$1@forums.macromedia.com...
Hi,

> I had a discussion with a friend of mine today about "Who Owns The
> Rights To The Flash Source Files??"

A knowledgeable company will contract you to do a "work for hire" and
require the sourcecode from you. If they don't do that, then you
don't HAVE to give them the sourcecode. We see a frequent posting on
these forums of people complaining that the previous Flash designer
took off and didn't give leave em the source code and now they are
stuck with an un-editable file. If it were JavaScript or html etc
then there wouldn't be that problem but with Flash the customer can
get stuck if the Flash designer quits without providing the
sourcecode. For that reason, if I were in their shoes I would never
pay for a Flash design without insisting on ownership rights to the
fla. IMHO, just because your customer isn't knowledgeable enough to
require that from you now, you shouldn't screw them with that
oversight later (unless you got screwed by them first of course)
tralfaz

Markham Martial Arts

2005-05-23, 7:34 pm

Development assets are generally not included in finished product deals with
clients.

If they would like to by the dev files then they and you must agree upon
that beforehand.
For most flash peeps out there, it is not a big deal to decompile a swf and
attain all it's parts for reassembly into an alternate fla file. But then,
if your client has someone on staff who has that sort of savvy, why would
they come to you?

:-)

As long as you make agreements for them to not resell your code logic and
formation in whole or in part and to use the fla only for their website, I
don't see what the problem is.

"John Williams" <chicagowebdesigner@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:d6p96s$8va$1@forums.macromedia.com...
Hi,

I had a discussion with a friend of mine today about "Who Owns The Rights To
The Flash Source Files??"

I am amultimedia web designer. I am very creative and professional with the
web sites I design. I produce pretty good work. I design each site so that
the client can update their content via external text files. And their
images are also dynamic. I make as easy as possible for my clients to update
their own sites.

I'd like to hear what designer's here have to say about this topic. Do you
give your source files to your clients? Do you believe that you own the
rights to your source files? I write in my contracts that they have the
rights to their SWF files. I have worked too hard to be on the level that I
am on to just hand my skillset and creativity over like that. In my opinion,
the client bought an end product.

Photography
- Most photographers DO NOT give their negatives away

Tailoring
- Tailors DO NOT give their patterns away

Chefs
- Chefs DO NOT have to give their recipes away

Does this make sense?

John

John Williams

2005-05-24, 4:20 am

Thank you all for your comments. I feel much better. I knew that there was a balance. All of your advice really helped. Thank you so much!
"John Williams" <chicagowebdesigner@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:d6p96s$8va$1@forums.macromedia.com...
Hi,

I had a discussion with a friend of mine today about "Who Owns The Rights To The Flash Source Files??"

I am amultimedia web designer. I am very creative and professional with the web sites I design. I produce pretty good work. I design each site so that the client can update their content via external text files. And their images are also dynamic. I make as easy as possible for my clients to update their own sites.

I'd like to hear what designer's here have to say about this topic. Do you give your source files to your clients? Do you believe that you own the rights to your source files? I write in my contracts that they have the rights to their SWF files. I have worked too hard to be on the level that I am on to just hand my skillset and creativity over like that. In my opinion, the client bought an end product.

Photography
- Most photographers DO NOT give their negatives away

Tailoring
- Tailors DO NOT give their patterns away

Chefs
- Chefs DO NOT have to give their recipes away

Does this make sense?

John

Michael Vilain

2005-05-24, 4:20 am

In article <d6u60h$1sc$1@forums.macromedia.com>,
"John Williams" <chicagowebdesigner@hotmail.com> wrote:

> Thank you all for your comments. I feel much better. I knew that there was a
> balance. All of your advice really helped. Thank you so much!
> "John Williams" <chicagowebdesigner@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> "news:d6p96s$8va$1@forums.macromedia.com...
> Hi,
>
> I had a discussion with a friend of mine today about "Who Owns The Rights
> To The Flash Source Files??"
>
> I am amultimedia web designer. I am very creative and professional with the
> web sites I design. I produce pretty good work. I design each site so that
> the client can update their content via external text files. And their
> images are also dynamic. I make as easy as possible for my clients to
> update their own sites.
>
> I'd like to hear what designer's here have to say about this topic. Do you
> give your source files to your clients? Do you believe that you own the
> rights to your source files? I write in my contracts that they have the
> rights to their SWF files. I have worked too hard to be on the level that I
> am on to just hand my skillset and creativity over like that. In my
> opinion, the client bought an end product.
>
> Photography
> - Most photographers DO NOT give their negatives away
>
> Tailoring
> - Tailors DO NOT give their patterns away
>
> Chefs
> - Chefs DO NOT have to give their recipes away
>
> Does this make sense?
>
> John

Note to self: never to contract with this guy.

Any contract work I would approve would require delivery of _all_ source
files at the end of a project. Final payment will be withheld until the
files are produced. If you don't like this requirement, find work
elsewhere.

--
DeeDee, don't press that button! DeeDee! NO! Dee...

Jeckyl

2005-05-24, 11:25 pm

posted.by$Vern$;

2005-05-25, 4:29 am

When I do a Video, the client does not get the raw Premiere file, or the raw
After Effects file, the raw 3DMax file, etc. Why would Flash be any
different? When a video needs to be updated, they call, I do the work at an
additional charge. I recently did a commercial that was then updated twice
within two months. There was never any doubt that I would be paid for the
additional time. Why would Flash be any different?

--
--
Regards,
--Vern
===========================
onClipEvent(doSomethingStupid){
setProperty("Face", color, #FF0000);
_root.audio = "uh oh!";
}

Michael Vilain

2005-05-25, 4:29 am

In article <d70tem$1oo$1@forums.macromedia.com>,
"posted.by$Vern$;" <vpenrod@pc-NOSPAMgrafix.com> wrote:

> When I do a Video, the client does not get the raw Premiere file, or the raw
> After Effects file, the raw 3DMax file, etc. Why would Flash be any
> different? When a video needs to be updated, they call, I do the work at an
> additional charge. I recently did a commercial that was then updated twice
> within two months. There was never any doubt that I would be paid for the
> additional time. Why would Flash be any different?
>
> --

Because I wrote "all source files and material are the property of the
client and will be turned over to the client at the end of the project
prior to receipt of final payment" into the contract that was signed.

You won't sign that? Well, thanks for talking with us...

--
DeeDee, don't press that button! DeeDee! NO! Dee...

John Williams

2005-05-25, 11:23 pm

That has been my exact reasoning. Thanks again.

"posted.by(Vern);" <vpenrod@pc-NOSPAMgrafix.com> wrote in message
news:d70tem$1oo$1@forums.macromedia.com...
> When I do a Video, the client does not get the raw Premiere file, or the
raw
> After Effects file, the raw 3DMax file, etc. Why would Flash be any
> different? When a video needs to be updated, they call, I do the work at
an
> additional charge. I recently did a commercial that was then updated
twice
> within two months. There was never any doubt that I would be paid for the
> additional time. Why would Flash be any different?
>
> --
> --
> Regards,
> --Vern
> ===========================
> onClipEvent(doSomethingStupid){
> setProperty("Face", color, #FF0000);
> _root.audio = "uh oh!";
> }
>
>

tralfaz

2005-05-25, 11:23 pm

"posted.by(Vern);" <vpenrod@pc-NOSPAMgrafix.com> wrote in message
news:d70tem$1oo$1@forums.macromedia.com...
> When I do a Video, the client does not get the raw Premiere file, or
> the raw After Effects file, the raw 3DMax file, etc. Why would
> Flash be any different? When a video needs to be updated, they
> call, I do the work at an additional charge. I recently did a
> commercial that was then updated twice within two months. There was
> never any doubt that I would be paid for the additional time. Why
> would Flash be any different?
>
> --
> --
> Regards,
> --Vern

Your logic sounds right and it's great from a Flash designer's
prospective but I wouldn't go for it from the customer side. I do
industrial machine control programming as a software consultant and
even though the customer never asks me for the sourcecode it is
understood that it belongs to them if I stop doing the work on it.
Otherwise they would have to start from scratch at great expense with
a new programmer.

Regards,
tralfaz

Jeckyl

2005-05-25, 11:23 pm

It really depends on the specs of your contract. The client needs to say "I
need the source so I can modify and maintain it myself" or "I want to be
able to modify this easily without changing the source (eg edit html or text
files)" or "I just want the finished product". You should (in the future)
make sure the client understands what they are getting and what they are
not, and what they actually need, and factor this into your costs (providing
the source means you are cut out of future income for maintenance and
changes, so that should be factored into your contract price). Without
seeing the specs and wording of your actual contract, we can only give
opinions of what we would do personally etc. .. you need someone with some
local legal knowledge to look at your contract and decide whether the
contract in question implies ownership of the IP and source. Other issue is
whether the good will you get from providing the source for this one client
is worth it .. it may be they are someone you expect to do a lot more
business with, so you want to keep in their "good-books" ... or it may be a
precedent for other clients who'll say "well, we heard you gave xyz the
source, so why should we pay?". Tricky.
--
Jeckyl

posted.by$Vern$;

2005-05-25, 11:23 pm

"Tricky" describes the issue well, for sure. There are very compelling
reasons on both sides. I have never been a programer, so I am unfamiliar
with the practice of turning over the sources code. But it makes sense, and
from a programmer point of view, that is the way things are done. I, on the
other hand, am a designer. I have created things for years where the
finished product was a compilied image, or a video, and the client NEVER
gets the raw PS file, etc.

Both things make sense. When I am doing Flash for a client, I try and make
as much of it dynamically loaded as I can, making it resonably easy for the
client to change images, verbage, etc. But that is from the designer POV.
The programing POV is very different.

This is a good discussion. Better than most threads like it.

--
--
Regards,
--Vern
===========================
onClipEvent(doSomethingStupid){
setProperty("Face", color, #FF0000);
_root.audio = "uh oh!";
}

posted.by$Vern$;

2005-05-26, 7:29 pm

According to my attorney freind - who, by the way, I am currently building a
site for!! - the obligation is to deliver the finished product, which you
have. The obligation does not include any files used to create the finished
product. Assuming the agreement was for a website, you have meet the
agreement in full, and the owner has no further rights to any files, images
or code, unless they already owned them.

With that said, he also says that law is always an interpretation, and a
judge or panel may not interpret things the way he does. When I introduced
the ideas that tralfaz talked about, source code and programing, he then
said, "...you need a profesional opinon of someone who is well versed in
this area..."

So there ya' go for what it's worth.

--
--
Regards,
--Vern
===========================
onClipEvent(doSomethingStupid){
setProperty("Face", color, #FF0000);
_root.audio = "uh oh!";
}

tralfaz

2005-05-26, 7:29 pm

"SanDiegoFlash" <webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote in message
news:d73vrb$k9h$1@forums.macromedia.com...
> Unless otherwise specified, I believe the .fla files are like my
> other
> development files for photoshop, etc. and I don't provide them
> unless client
> pays extra. I recently finished a job that included Flash files
> embedded in
> regular html pages and gave client great discount since he was low
> on cash.
> Just yesterday I receive an email from some other web master asking
> for the
> .fla files so they can perform changes on it. Why should I help
> another
> designer utilize my clever design tricks in Flash and look like a
> champ to my
> client. Had client paid me super well for project I think I'd be
> more
> receptive... but I really gave him a good price for a nice looking
> site.
> (unfortunately, because this was an extremely low budget thing I
> didn't have a
> written understanding about this)... it would be interesting to know
> if there
> is any legal right to the .fla files without a written agreement.
> ((by the way,
> my client is also an attorney... whew!))... any one out there that
> has an
> attorney friend?

Even if you don't do a contract, save all your emails that spell
things out. Even when the verbal is understood, repeat it in your
emails and get their ok with that wording in it. It's not as good as
a signed written contract but makes it harder for someone to change
things later. If someone with money or attorneys wants something
from you and if you have no money or attorneys, they will bully you
into it just because you can't afford to do anything about it. Try to
make a deal but don't waste your time and energy on it if it goes
beyond talking. Move on to your next great adventure. :o) Some
people will be reasonable with you if you talk to them the right way
though. Most people want to do the right thing.
good luck,
tralfaz

Jeckyl

2005-05-29, 4:16 am