Hello All.
About a year and a half ago I volunteered to provide my services as a software engineer to a popular website. The website was operating on some software which was in need of some serious upgrading and fixing. Over the course of the next year and a half I made many upgrades and changes to the software and took on an active role in the administration of the website.
Just recently the owner of the website and myself had a minor dispute, and I was ejected from my administration position. All of my changes to the software are still in use - many of them exhibited on publicly accessible web pages.
My question is this: Do I have rights to the various computer code (and other digital data) which I have created? When taking on the position, there were no formal (or informal) discussions (written or spoken) in regards to the conditions of my work or ownership of my work. I was not remunerated in any way for the work that I did for them.
There are a few complicating elements. Firstly, I am only the author of portions of the code. Much of my work consisted of editing existing bits of the software and adding new parts to it. In a sense, the entire software product in its current form could be seen as a derivative work of the software which existed before I volunteered my time. Secondly, there are several rights holders to the original software: The website owner paid my predecessor to modify an open source application.
More than a little bit upset with the management of the website (ejecting me over a minor dispute), I would like to exercise my rights (if they exist) as the author and copyright holder of these portions of code. If possible, I would like to sell them the rights to the work, or force them to cease use of these portions of code and remove all infringing parts of the software.
Hopefully most of what I have written here makes sense - I'd be more than happy to clarify anything which doesn't. I'd just like to thank in advance everyone who contributes some advice.
N.
About a year and a half ago I volunteered to provide my services as a software engineer to a popular website. The website was operating on some software which was in need of some serious upgrading and fixing. Over the course of the next year and a half I made many upgrades and changes to the software and took on an active role in the administration of the website.
Just recently the owner of the website and myself had a minor dispute, and I was ejected from my administration position. All of my changes to the software are still in use - many of them exhibited on publicly accessible web pages.
My question is this: Do I have rights to the various computer code (and other digital data) which I have created? When taking on the position, there were no formal (or informal) discussions (written or spoken) in regards to the conditions of my work or ownership of my work. I was not remunerated in any way for the work that I did for them.
There are a few complicating elements. Firstly, I am only the author of portions of the code. Much of my work consisted of editing existing bits of the software and adding new parts to it. In a sense, the entire software product in its current form could be seen as a derivative work of the software which existed before I volunteered my time. Secondly, there are several rights holders to the original software: The website owner paid my predecessor to modify an open source application.
More than a little bit upset with the management of the website (ejecting me over a minor dispute), I would like to exercise my rights (if they exist) as the author and copyright holder of these portions of code. If possible, I would like to sell them the rights to the work, or force them to cease use of these portions of code and remove all infringing parts of the software.
Hopefully most of what I have written here makes sense - I'd be more than happy to clarify anything which doesn't. I'd just like to thank in advance everyone who contributes some advice.
N.
