Hi All,
I have been a long time lurker, however have an interesting problem I am not quite sure how to deal with and would like others feedback.
2 years ago I designed a site for a client and was maintaining this site for about a year afterwards. A few months ago I received an email from another web developer saying he was taking over the site and not to contact his client.
I was a bit baffled as they were still paying their bill and called directly to speak with the owner. As I was overseas at the time, and the way virtual updates go, was never an issue.
Nevertheless, she went on to say, that he approached her and said he was working as an agent for me and was going to take over the site.
Of course I explained to her this was false, however she said that she had already signed a contract with him and felt more comfortable having someone locally that she could contact.
I wished her well and told her that she could always contact me.
A few months after that, I noticed he had redesigned the site, prior to the "redesign" he asked for the workfiles, which I denied him, as I explained the contract we had was she was assigned rights to use the assembled work as a website, and that I never give out workfiles.
To cut a long story short, his redesign is almost exactly like the site I designed, except for the header graphic which is terrible, and it's framed, and just generally a crappier version of my original creation.
All of the copy that we created, all the graphics are identical, and in fact are my graphics as they still have the same tag names, and I have matched these from my original design layout. (Plus I give weird file names)
My problem is that he his peddling this as his own work, and in addition, I purchased licenses to a few stock photos that he is also using in the design, on top of that, I purchased a rare font that was created from a typographer and know that it's not a run of the mill, find it anywhere wingdings font.
I am miffed that he stole my client, but it's really put a twist in my knickers over him using my graphical work as "his own creation".
I know the contract clearly states that the client is assigned rights to use the assembled work as a website, however does this mean they can chop up the work and use it in a new design, and can this so called web developer use my work and claim it as his own ?
Thoughts anyone ? Sorry for the long post and appreciate the replies.
I have been a long time lurker, however have an interesting problem I am not quite sure how to deal with and would like others feedback.
2 years ago I designed a site for a client and was maintaining this site for about a year afterwards. A few months ago I received an email from another web developer saying he was taking over the site and not to contact his client.
I was a bit baffled as they were still paying their bill and called directly to speak with the owner. As I was overseas at the time, and the way virtual updates go, was never an issue.
Nevertheless, she went on to say, that he approached her and said he was working as an agent for me and was going to take over the site.
Of course I explained to her this was false, however she said that she had already signed a contract with him and felt more comfortable having someone locally that she could contact.
I wished her well and told her that she could always contact me.
A few months after that, I noticed he had redesigned the site, prior to the "redesign" he asked for the workfiles, which I denied him, as I explained the contract we had was she was assigned rights to use the assembled work as a website, and that I never give out workfiles.
To cut a long story short, his redesign is almost exactly like the site I designed, except for the header graphic which is terrible, and it's framed, and just generally a crappier version of my original creation.
All of the copy that we created, all the graphics are identical, and in fact are my graphics as they still have the same tag names, and I have matched these from my original design layout. (Plus I give weird file names)
My problem is that he his peddling this as his own work, and in addition, I purchased licenses to a few stock photos that he is also using in the design, on top of that, I purchased a rare font that was created from a typographer and know that it's not a run of the mill, find it anywhere wingdings font.
I am miffed that he stole my client, but it's really put a twist in my knickers over him using my graphical work as "his own creation".
I know the contract clearly states that the client is assigned rights to use the assembled work as a website, however does this mean they can chop up the work and use it in a new design, and can this so called web developer use my work and claim it as his own ?
Thoughts anyone ? Sorry for the long post and appreciate the replies.
