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[Bryan Hurlbut]

Hi All,

Boy, I'm glad to find this web board.  Here is the deal.

I have a contract with a client from five years ago that says they own nothing I create in program form.  Furthermore, I have documents that say they relinquish any implied ownership.  I created a system and then allowed them to use it in good faith.  My verbal agreement was that should our relationship ever dissolve, I would allow them to continue on with their own staff and they could maintain their license of the software as they had need.  However, they did/do not have the right to distribute, sell, lease or share in any way, the program.

Now, after six months of separation, they are coming back and saying that they have changed the program enough that it is no longer the software I wrote (+-500,000 lines of code).  

Can anyone point me to a resource that I can give them that basically says that they own the mods, but the source as it was delivered is still only theirs to use?  When our relationship was terminated, I froze a copy of the system so that I would have a point at which to compare/go back to.

Any thoughts?  Do I have no legs to stand on?  Am I okay?

Thanks in advance.

[JSonnabend]

Generally speaking, if their current code was derrived from your code, then it may be considered an infringing, derrivative work.  You'll need to discuss your matter in deail with an attorney (like myself or others here) to get a substantive response and map a course of action.

If your code is valuable to you, and you think the other side's actions will be damaging to you, then the time and money you spend with an attorney will be  well spent, in all likelihood.

- Jeff