Re: FLASH: Ownership of .fla Files

[Marc Hoffman, Poison Dart Frog Media]

At 07:57 AM 2/17/00 , you wrote:


>When you complete a Flash website job - who "owns" the .fla (authoring

>source) files? The design/web company or the client?


Although copyright law varies from country to country, there is quite a bit 

of uniformity, especially in Western countries. Most places, it is presumed 

that the creator of a work has copyright to that work.  So when you create 

web content for a client, they are licensing the use of your work for their 

site. Of course it is best to have this in writing to avoid 

misunderstandings, bad feelings, and lawsuits. So you should always specify 

exactly what is being purchased.


My experience is that in practice web content freelancers are split on 

whether they provide source files. However you are under no legal 

obligation to do so unless it's in the contract. The legal presumption in 

most places is that you are selling just the license to use the finished 

work, not the work itself and certainly not the materials used to create it.


Work-for-hire (where you are someone's employee and work on their premises) 

is an exception. Under those circumstances, it is presumed in some places 

(including the US) that everything you create in connection with the job 

becomes the property of your employer (in some cases this applies even if 

you create something on your own time but it is directly related to your 

employment).


See the Graphic Artists Guild web site for lots of information on this: 

http://www.gag.org/.


Marc Hoffman


Poison Dart Frog Media: Specializing in Flash Animation and Digital Audio 

Production

Our latest Flash job is on display at <http://www.dartfrogmedia.com/rickfrnd>

See our Flash portfolio at <http://www.dartfrogmedia.com/portfolio>

(featured in Flash 3 Web Animation, by Ken Milburn)



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