Re: Copyright Question

Subject: Re: Copyright Question
From: "Susan W. Gallagher" <susan-gallagher -at- vertel -dot- com>
To: Jean Jordaan <Jean -at- mosaicsoftware -dot- com>, "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Fri, 05 May 2000 11:39:02 -0700

At 04:44 PM 5/5/00 +0200, Jean Jordaan wrote:

>...resellers... bundle our software...
>
>They also use our documentation...
>hacking it about...misrepresenting ... misinforming... do not acknowledge
>...our documentation...or mention our product, as
>a component of theirs, by name.
>
>I'd like to know what's the industry standard on this?

The rights and obligations that you have are usually spelled out in
the contract with the reseller. It's been my experience that docs are
given minor consideration in such contracts. In general, your company
is responsible for providing a functional API and source documentation;
the reseller is responsible for paying your company for each product
that they sell with yours embedded in it. They are not responsible
for maintaining the integrity of your documentation, nor are they
responsible for acknowledging your product as a part of theirs,
*unless* the contract specifically states that they must acknowledge
your copyright. And if this is true, all they need to say is
"portions of this work are the copyright of MosaicSoft..." or
some such thing.

Best advice I can give you is to ship the docs out the door and
never look at them again. "Change what you can, accept what you
can't, recognize the difference" and move on.



-Sue Gallagher http://pw1.netcom.com/~gscale/susanwg/
susan-gallagher -at- vertel -dot- com http://www.vertel.com

The _Guide_ is definitive.
Reality is frequently inaccurate. --Douglas Adams




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