On January 29, 2009 at 21:29, 39 Cent Stamp said...
Who would apple be authoring the work for if not for the
customer?
But they are not creating individualized code at the behest of the customer. For instance, if I hire you to write me an order processing system, then who owns the copyright on that system? Depending on the agency relationship, it could be you or me. Same situation here. I'm not arguing that once the code is loaded into the remote that it does not resemble an iPod. I'm saying that the customer could possibly be the owner of the copyright because it was done at their command.
I dont think copyright matters here. If the programmer
says his contract was to provide compiled code to make
the system operational then theres no argument. If the
system is running as it should the obligation has been
met. The client has the compiled code, the programmer
was paid for it. Who owns the compiled code is a non issue.
Copyright would matter in determining ownership of the work. Again, if the court finds a particular agency relationship, the customer could be the copyright owner. I don't think it would, but that's just me talking from you know where. In fact, I think you'd have to have a very particular set of circumstances to get there. But somebody has to own the work. If you do, then you are licensing to the end-user. That has its own set of peculiarities.
