Serious Problem with other PHP developer

gc40

Okay guys,
I HAD a client in the past that requested I code a website for them. At the time, I was overloaded with work and sub-contracted another web developer company to help me out. They designed a small script to add, edit and delete Net Asset Values on the companies' site. Lets call my client THE COMPANY.

Months passed and THE COMPANY contacted me to update their site and make it more dynamic. I met with them and within a few weeks I was contracted to build their new website. I built a complete CMS which allowed the company to edit anything on the website they wished. The guy in charge of dealing with the website at THE COMPANY was very pleased and we eventually signed off on the website and I got paid. The guy that I was dealing with later quit the company. Later that month, I got an email from some staff of the company requesting all kinds of changes that were outside of the scope. Not to mention, we already signed off on the website. I got a deadline for Oct 19th. I was extremely busy and told the company I will try my best, and being the nice guy I am, I would not charge a cent. The changes took me over 2 days. I completed by Oct 28th. I sent the company an email and their response was requesting me to provide all database, ftp and files to THE COMPANY. They hired a new web developer. At first I was a little upset because I made all the changes and took my time out of it and didn't even charge. I was thinking about encrypting my code, but I figured the new web developer was an ethical developer.

A few weeks pass by and the company launches their site. I go and check it out. The only thing that has changed is the template!! The coding and structure of the site is still my code. I was fine with this because they wanted a new look. However, when I checked my copyright in the code comments, they had all be removed. Each and every file had its comments removed and copyright removed! Now I was truely upset. He even changed the footer to his company name.
I then went to the CMS on THE COMPANY website. Guess what? The CMS was completely UNCHANGED from my coding, but all the copyright, title and information containing my companies' info was changes to HIS COMPANY!
The title of the CMS was MYCOMPANY.COM CMS, he changed it to HISCOMPANY.com CMS!!

Now I am truely pissed off. I look up this guy in the whois and got his contact information. I call him. To my suprise I find out he is the coder at the sub-contracted company I used months ago for the original website. He quit the sub-contract company and started his own company.
When I tell him my situation and what he is doing is illegal, he tells me, well, one part of the website is my code.
I ask what he is talking about.... He says that the Net Asset Value script was designed by him at the sub-contract company. Remember guys, the Net Asset Value (NAV) script is one script of over 30 different scripts I have on the CMS.
I tell him that #1. He was an employee at the sub-contract company, so anything he did belong to that company and not him, and #2. I used the subcontract company to help me develop the original site. Meaning all source code given to me was mine to change and manipulate as per my agreement with the sub-contract company.

I then email him and THE COMPANY asking that the copyright be changed back to my name. He replied saying he refuses to do so because his company and mine are not affiliated.
I am about to type my response, but I have no idea what to say. I do not want to start a war, but at the same time, what is mine is mine.

Please advise.

YAOMK

Well it seems like they are not willing to collaborate, have you contacted someone up in the Company ladder? If you have proper documentation, contracts and so on, I would get a lawyer, or at least notify The Company that my next step would be to take legal action against said organization. I believe you have concurred damages in the form of lack of credit and therefore exposure. A judge would certainly see their omission right through.

Horizon88

If his phone number is posted in his whois information, you've got his address too, right?

<_<

rulian

Dont go on my word alone, but I believe you still own the intellectual property reguardless of what they paid for, unless stated in your contract that the code you wrote would become their property.
Developers and clients will try to do all sorts of tricks, and I cant say I blame them, as I've said before people are very mistrusting of IT departments and vice versa. The downside is decent people get screwed, not a new concept in business.

A good business practice is to basically charge for everything, no freebies.
Not to screw people over but to make sure you get paid for your work. The contract you sign should mention whether updates are included in your scope or not, and if not then you should estimate the updates be them small or not.
A good contract will serve to protect both you and your client, so it's worth it to spend some time developing a good one.
I've done freebies in the past, and peopel start to abuse generosity after a while.
When both parties approach it as a pure business transaction of buy/sell, the thing tend to go smoother, at least in MY opinion.

But, that other developer is a duche

redrage

What a pain in the butt. Just wanted to tell you good luck and I feel for ya. I worked at a job where someone else took all the credit for the work I did and I didn't realize that he was getting raises and bonuses for my work for 3 years.

Right before I left that job I found he to was changing my comments and such to make them sound own.

These type of people suck.

scoppc

I really would like to know how some of us solve this problem.
Anybody can share some tips?

Weedpacket

Pull together your documentation, development and source control logs and whatnot that proves that you wrote what you wrote, your copies of the contracts you signed with the other developer, and start legal proceedings (whatever that may entail in your jurisdiction).

foyer

if you still have FTP access just delete the whole root folder

Sometimes I code back doors in scripts in case I ever get screwed

benracer

do you have access to the control panel on the host? - delete the lot!

bpat1434

Do not follow Foyer's comments. That will land you in even hotter waters as now you're tampering with another person's server, which can violate many different policies.

I've been in this situation before. I'll go ahead and tell you my story, it's kinda long as it's two wrapped into one:
[indent]
When I was just starting out my PHP development, and I was getting good, I decided to help out my summer job which I had worked for 2 years prior, and my local volunteer fire department (to which I am still a member in good standing). Now, for my fire department I agreed that if they paid the server costs, I'd go ahead and do the site for free (since they were non-profit). I started to develop a complete CMS for them. It came with all the bells and whistles like adding photos to articles, repositioning articles, resizing photos, adding photo galleries, adding call information, adding announcements, etc. I also added a "members only" section for those members inside the department and was working to get each member an @myvfd.org email address. And the last part of my plan was to get a digital form of the monthly newsletter together. Anyway, I created one site and it looked pretty good, and worked very well. So they used it without incident and were happy. So as I learned more and more, I developed the site over and over again (probably 3 times in a year) each time with a different GUI; although roughly the same layout. Only once did I really change the layout (between the first and second times). So I went to college, and I had no "middle-man" to proxy information for the site to me. So things slowed down on the site.

As things progressed, I went back for my carnival and the President asked to speak with me. He said the Board was not impressed with my performance and that they were going to hand off most of it to another developer in Pennsylvania. He said I'd still be the lead and I would work in conjunction with the guy in PA. So I said that would be okay with me, and the second developer contacted me not long after that. We started a joint venture.

Two to three weeks later, I got a long email from him stating that he hadn't let down any customer before, and my "lack-luster" attitude wasn't helping and because of me, he was falling behind on the VFD site. So I was cut off from the site and couldn't update anything. So he took my CSS and HTML layout (and images) and dumbed them down to a 3-year-old's level. He "kidded" up the page so that it went for the 5 year old crowd instead of actually giving information out. Today the site still uses the code I created a while ago, but with a terrible set of images (except the header, that was mine).

The other site I was working on for my summer-job was stripped from me because once again they claim I wasn't updating the site enough. Not to mention any of the fact that i had added pictures and kept the member information up to date, and updated the site nightly on the status of the pool (open, closed, temporarily OOS). So they found someone else in the area that provided web services, and she ripped my images from me. So the job asked me what they owed me to finish everything up. So since they weren't giving my images back, I charged them a pretty penny (upwards of $2,000.00). They said it was extortion, and they weren't going to pay, so I removed all my code & images from the site and wrote up a little something for them to say that they would never use my images or layout on the site. They ended up paying me like $800 for everything, and once again, this amateur butchered my code to come up with a piss-poor excuse for a site.[/indent]

So I've had some relatively bad experiences (and yet I still work as a web developer). But each time, I've never really solved them.

If I were you I'd look through all your contracts, and see exactly what is what, and who owns what. I might even get a pro-bono lawyer to help me sort this out. Intellectual property copyright is a sticky subject, and some companies won't go near it, and others get screwed by it. So make sure you know which side you really are on.

If you can in any way prove that the code is yours, take it to the main client, THE COMPANY, and prove it to them. Then tell them to get their money back, and to pay you what you're rightfully owed. You might get their business back too 😉

Just tread lightly. You don't want to burn too many bridges at once, otherwise you'll be on an island with no-one to help you out....