Legally &quot;give&quot; Intellectual Property without explict charge? Summary: I'm an IT contractor, and have some self-made source code (my IP) to solve certain problems a lot of clients have. I want to legally &quot;give&quot; that IP to my clients, without explicitly charging for it (the fee for it is included in my day rate, and so already paid). If I do this, is it legally binding and/or does it open me, or them up for other problems? Long version: In my off-time, I've spent some time re-creating some of the clever solutions I've seen elsewhere. Typically this is done by reading a tonne of web pages, putting scraps of information together and iterating a bit to make a solution. None of the original is used to do this, other than my memory of what it was. These solutions are expressed as computer source code. I tend to try to make these &quot;generic&quot; such that they could be customised to fit any future client, so they're similar but different to the originals. I don't foresee any claim from previous clients over these works (or at least, that's not the subject of this question). Now working at a new client, I can &quot;cut and paste&quot; my solution into their environment. This saves me time, and so saves them money. I use this capability as part of my negotiation of day rates and such like. I'd like to formerly give rights to the &quot;cut and pasted&quot; source code that I've used at my new client. I of course want to retain ownership of my copy, but make it very clear that I've given them some of my IP and that they can do anything they like with it going forward. The purpose of this is partly legal, but mostly to make it super explicit that it's taken place - a bit of &quot;PR&quot; if you like. I'd want to hand them a legal document explaining what's happened, and a description of what it is they've received, why it's good for them, etc. My lawyer has &quot;Assignment of Intellectual Property&quot; templates (https://www.lawbite.co.uk/legal-and-business-documents/139/assignment_of_intellectual_property), which look to me like they'd work nicely. I can of course have the lawyers check over my edits of those templates before I send them. However, in that template there's a &quot;schedule&quot; of the items being assigned which is supposed to list the price I'm charging. My question is, can I either make the price £0, or else somehow express that the fee has already been paid as part of the day rate? Does doing so somehow have side-effects to me in the future? If I were to charge £0, would a (pedantic?) client require me to send in a £0 invoice or would they have to do something internally to account for this &quot;purchase&quot;? If this is (in principle) possible to do, then I can of course have my lawyers review the wording I use to express it - at this point I really just want to know if it's possible in law to do something like this. Any help much appreciated. Just to be clear (in response to comments): I'm asking about a legal principle/construct - to see if an idea is worth pursuing. I'm not asking for anyone to word a contract or agreement. Also in response to comments and answers: A license is probably a better expression than a transfer for what I'm looking to achieve here.
It is certainly possible to transfer a copyright or other IP without an explicit charge, indeed it can be a pure gift, and normally would be when it is left by will, as is common enough. From a paid consultant it might be clearer to include a statement that the transfer is part of the consulting assignment, rather than putting a price of zero in a blank. But one could instead convey a permanent non-exclusive license, granting permission to use or modify the work in any way desired, ans saying that this is provided as part of the consulting process. Then there would be no question of what rights the consultant retained, or that the same or a very similar solution could be provided to different clients. Indeed such a license would not be so very different from a CC-BY license, or any of several open source licenses, although I would not use one of those by name. But the legal effect would be much the same, and the wording could be similar. Otherwise there could be a later claim that the right transferred precluded the consultant from using the same solution for other clients. Even if such a claim was not legally sound, and was not upheld, it could be a distraction and costly of time and energy at least.
How close is such a statement corresponding with the reality? Legally, such language is a meaningless statement of future intent that at best makes clear that the person making the statement isn't waiving any of their legal rights. Certainly, no infringer would have standing to sue if they failed to do so. Whether a joint venture member or foreign reseller could sue the company for failing to enforce its IP rights is another question that presents itself very differently and depends upon much more than what the warning labels state, such as the language in the joint partnership or reseller's agreement with the copyright owner. Also, in criminal copyright violation cases, even if the copyright owner asks for the maximum possible consequences, the U.S. Justice Department is under no obligation whatsoever to go along with that request. Likewise, a judge has no obligation to impose the maximum penalty allowed by law following a criminal conviction, even if the copyright owner and the U.S. Justice Department both request a maximum sentence for someone who pleas guilty or is convicted of the offense following a trial. In practice, something like 98% of federal criminal cases, and a similar percentage of federal civil cases, result in agreed resolutions which result in less severe penalties than the maximum penalties allowed by law. This happens as a result of a mutual agreement to resolve the case with a guilty plea, or a settlement agreement in a civil case, or both. Also, in practice, none of these companies, nor the federal government's prosecutors, have the resources to press anything but the most clear and serious copyright violation cases, and cases that are valuable for P.R. purposes. Anything else is essentially a random lottery from myriad cases that could have been brought in order to counteract the argument (both political and legal) that their copyright protections are empty and completely unenforced is a large part of the cases to which the statutes would make it seem that they apply. Also, in a case brought by a joint venture owner or reseller for failure to enforce a copyright which causes the partner damages, presumably in some sort of breach of contract or breach of fiduciary duty action, there would be no way to prove damages from all of the non-enforcement, since enforcing every known infringement would not be cost effective and would reduce the net profits of everyone involved.
Content posted to the web is usually openly accessible to all (unless protected by a password, paywall, or similar restriction). But that does not mean it is freely copyable by all. Such content is protected by copyright in just the same way as if it had been published in a book of essays by various contributors. Unless the copyright holders (who are likely to be the original authors, but might not be) give permission, or an exception to copyright applies, copying such content would be clear and obvious copyright infringement, and any copyright holder could sue for damages. Permission could be given by publishing the content under a permissive license, such as a CC-BY-SA license, or any of many other available permissive licenses. Or a would-be reuser could find the copyright holders and ask for permission. If the holder cannot be found or identified, or does not respond, then no permission has been granted. In the US the main exception to copyright is fair use. See this answer and other threads with the fair-use tag here for more on fair use. Since the question seems to contemplate using the whole of the posted content, since it might well damage any potential market for that content, and since the use does not seem to be &quot;transformative&quot;, nor used for criticism or comment, a finding of fair use for this situation seems unlikely. But Fair use findings are very much fact-driven, and the exact facts do matter. Thus I cannot be at all sure whether a court would find this toi be fair use or not. In other countries there are a variety of exceptions to copyright, and I have not come close to reviewing them all. But none of the ones I know of seem to apply to the situation described in the question. Many are narrower than the US concept of fair use. I fear that without permission, copying this content would be infringement. However, it would not be infringement to create a site that includes a link to the existing content, and a summary or description of that content, along with new content, including comments on the old, with brief quotes to indicate what is being commented on.
The creator of the software doesn't provide any warranty. If you feel confident in the quality of the software, nothing stops you from providing a warranty. If the software doesn't meet your guarantees, you will have to pay out because you provided the warranty, depending on the terms. Not the creator of the software because they explicitly didn't provide any warranty. If that's what you want to do, go ahead. I wouldn't. You don't have to republish under the BSD license, which you wouldn't. You must attach the license terms, which clarifies the role of the original creators, and that they don't give a warranty. Doing this allows you to copy the software. It doesn't mean you can't provide a warranty.
You can make a derivative work if: the original is not under copyright, you are the copyright owner, you hold a licence from the copyright owner that says you can, or your usage is fair use or fair dealing as applicable. For your proposal, the image is copyright, you don’t own it, you don’t have a licence and what you propose is neither fair use nor fair dealing. You can’t do it and you can be sued if you do.
You are in breach of Copyright. Plain and simple. Certain websites allow you to use the website content as long as a link is made, but the website must clearly state that. You may also use a tiny portion of the content if it falls under Fair Use, where "Fair Use" does not mean "I want to". The best thing to do is not to do it. You can't copy anybody's work without consent. If you're thinking about Google specifically then they offer multiple APIs so that you can use their content in a wide variety of ways.
If you develop a program yourself and it wasn't a work made for hire, then the program is yours to do with as you please. You hold the copyright to it. Many developers choose existing licencing arrangements or they can choose to create a license on their own, or using an attorney. And sometimes they choose to release their programs into the public domain. If you release it into the public domain, you are essentially giving up your copyright. The IDE (Integrated Development Environment) you used to develop your program does not dictate what licenses you can use. There are some existing licenses that others use (which you are free to use or NOT to use) give varying protections to you regarding what you are allowing others to do; right of others to copy, right of others to modify, right of others to distribute, rights to sub-licence, and so on. One of the licensing schemes is the GNU General Public License (GPL). But there are many others, too many to list here.
This is a common issue when a contractor is hired to write a technical document. Under united-states law, at least, the answer is clear. The contractor owns the copyright unless there is a written agreement transferring the copyright. This may or may not be a work-for-hire agreement, and there are some significant differences in the effects if it is, but an agreement in writing there must be. Otherwise the author (the contractor) retains the copyright. If you were an employee, the result would be the reverse. Even though you hold the copyright, I think you should, at a minimum, change any identifying details. There might be an invasion of privacy issue otherwise, and there surely would be an ethical issue. However, you do not hold the copyright of any original version that the client wrote. The client holds that, unless there was a written agreement giving you the copyright. If your final resume is sufficiently close to the original as to be a derivative work then you must have the client's permission before publishing it. If this is in the US, the issue of the client's copyright on the original version might be avoided via a claim of Fair Use (FU), as a comment mentions. This is a specifically US legal concept, although some other countries have a somewhat similar but narrower concept of Fair dealing. There is no automatic formula for what use will be considered a fair use -- the specific facts of the matter must always be considered. The statute lists four factors to consider, but the court may consider others as well, and caselaw says no one factor is dominant in all cases, they must be balanced The four factors as set out by 17 USC 17 are: (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. Here as the writer would be using the whole work, factor (3) , the amount of the work used, would tilt against FU. The use is not educational or non-profit, nor transformative, so factor (1) also tilts against FU. There is probably no market for the original, which tilts factor (4) toward FU. The original is highly factual which tilts factor (2) toward FU. There is no telling where a court would come out, and the OP doesn't want to rely on a risky issue. If anyone were to relay on fair use for this sort of thing, consulting an attorney who could look at specifics would be a good idea.