Is the developer right?

Question

Law in IT

Hello! The owner of the site (already our client) asked to transfer his current site (static html) 1:1 to the engine. We transferred it to the VP, repeated 97% of the statics, put our logo, added it to the portfolio. Half a year later, the developer of statics showed up and demanded that our label be removed from the basement and removed from our portfolio.
Who is right, who is not? How can I leave my logo with a link?
Thank you.
UP 1
1) our client and the previous developer did not (already) sign any contracts;
2) if we change the main elements of the design (not drastically), then it will no longer be considered the same design.
3) The client is satisfied with everything, we have an agreement with him which describes the presence of our logo

Answer 1

Hmm, the situation is ambiguous, although not unusual. On the one hand, the design de facto does not belong to you, de juri - there are no documents, that is, everything is on your conscience. In general, I would write as it is. In the footer: "Designed by CompanyName" or similar wording. In the portfolio, I would indicate that work was done on this site to connect the existing template to the engine and adapt it to work with the engine. Many firms have this kind of task, this is a good item in the portfolio.

Answer 2

I don’t presume to judge, but if I understood your question correctly, then you simply copied someone’s template, transferred it to the vp and put your logo, like this is your development. All right? If yes, then in fact the site has remained the same, i.e. the idea, style and design as a whole still belong to its creator. You just redesigned the layout for cms and made minor edits.

Answer 3

You made only the back-end and all the rights to the design / front remained with the previous developer.
According to all the rules, you are obliged to indicate in your portfolio a link (to the previous developer) and explain that you did only a stretch, and the front was made by such and such a person. And in the basement, if you put your logo, then again with explanations that you did the back-end and support the site, the design and front-end were done by such and such a person.
Copyright does not automatically transfer to the customer after the delivery of the work, your contract with the customer is not valid (in terms of assigning copyright to the work). For such a case, the developer had to transfer the rights to the customer under a special agreement, then the customer would have the right to give permission to you to assign all the rights (but what is his interest in this? transferring copyright to 3rd parties?).
Based on everything that I wrote, we can briefly say: indicating your authorship, you are required to clarify what exactly your work consisted of.

Answer 4

rights

Answer 5

When your work, made from scratch, is labeled by other cunning developers, the truth will appear to you in the form of the correct answer to your question.

Answer 6

Above, you have already unsubscribed that you are likely to win in court. However, I see 2 more nuances:
1) moral and ethical, IMHO, in this case, it's just ugly to ascribe to yourself someone else's work. You can specify what did a certain part.
2) reputation. You are doing a portfolio for something, so you want to appear in a good light. But if your potential customer wants to know more about you, he may stumble upon this question. Or to that developer's angry post. And the question is not only that you will look somewhat unethical, but also that he may wonder how many more projects in your portfolio are marked as development from scratch, but in fact, pulling on a CMS.
I would be afraid to cooperate with you if you appeal that you are legally right - I will understand that if I make a mistake in the contract, you will not consider it bad manners to use it.

Answer 7

Judging by the wording, the installation of your logo was not described in the TOR. It also looks like you didn't warn the client that you would be installing your logo.
In this case, the client is entirely right.

Answer 8

A very significant point that I did not find in the question - did the mention of the previous development on the site remain after it was transferred to cms?
Why is it so important.
Copyright is inseparable and separable.
The first cannot be bought or sold; a person, even dying, is not deprived of these rights. These are the right of authorship, the author's right to a name, the right to protection from distortion, the right to the inviolability of the work (Articles 1265 - 1267 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation).
The latter can and should be bought and sold - and in fact, everyone who creates something lives on this :) The most important of them is the exclusive right to a work (Article 1270 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation), according to which someone appears who receives the right from the author to use his work under an alienation agreement (Article 1285 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation), a license agreement (Article 1286 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation), an author's order agreement (Article 1288 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation), a provision on a service work or a work created by order (Article 1295 - 1296 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation). We note right away that works created under Art. 1295-1296, immediately become the exclusive property of the customer (while retaining naturally non-property rights for the developer).
So, if the TS is notnoted that the previous site design was created by Vasya Pupkin with an inscription like "Website design by Vasya Pupkin" - it's the TC's fault - it violates Art. 1265-1266, claiming authorship.
If the TC noted this, and added below "transfer to sms by Contora", then Vasya's rights ... are still violated :) but the office already has the right to place the site in its portfolio. Nevertheless, if I were Vasya, I would not yell about the violation of his rights to the whole world.
There is no paper contract that Vasya made a website for the Customer. Therefore, Vasya first needs to prove that he is in fact the author.
If he has not proved - he is free (and how he will prove - these are his problems, in a civil process, each party must prove its case, referring to the circumstances,
If he proved (and to prove - if a competent judge comes across - it will not be difficult - there is probably a correspondence with the customer, there are principles for constructing the project explained by Vasya ...) - then the court will see here a violation of Art. 1266 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation - the Customer has the exclusive right to Vasya's work by virtue of Art. 1296 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, but this article does not give him the right to modify Vasya's work, unless the customer and Vasya agreed on this earlier, and even then, since the contract was oral, they will easily give up their words. And if the Office did not mention Vasya as a developer, Art. 1265 - and the court may well oblige the Office to remove its logo from the site.
So why should Vasya still not buzz?
Offended Customer (and they will pull him to court, and they may well obligereturn to the old version of the site) writes a statement to Vasya that they say, so and so, I repent, I worked with citizen Pupkin in a dirty way, I’m ready to pay for the damage, I ask you to check the activities of Mr. Pupkin, carried out by him without a license.
And Vasya sailed ... Art. 171 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (and the presumption of innocence will apply there. But this will be small consolation for Vasya - after all, not one episode with the customer will come up - but everything that Vasya has ever done)
Therefore, do not wake famously while it is quiet. Freelancing in the Russian Federation is such a "near-legal" type of activity like private taxation ... And everyone who argues here from the position of "pure IT" should always remember that they do not exist in a closed sphere ...
UPD: Vasya has no rights to demand to remove the site from the portfolio - the Office has completed its work and now has its own rights to it by virtue of the same Art. 1265 - 1266 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. But he can state it in court - and if the court decides - he will have to remove

Answer 9

Responsibility for the site (content, code, etc.) is primarily the responsibility of the owner of the site (this is your client) and the claim should be addressed to him, and not to you ...
You, all the work on the site (delete something or add) can only be carried out with the consent of the site owner... (this is legally of course, not in fact).
This already applies to the process of proving, you cannot know for sure, but you should not trust words, in any case, let the author of the claim think about it if he intends to protect his rights ...
You have made significant changes / improvements, therefore, you are also the authors and have the right to use the mention of yourself on the site. The author of the main design of the site did not stipulate the right to use his name (as the author) on the site, in addition, it was not clear whether the author was mentioned on the site or not ... if not, then the owner of the site (your client) has the right not to use the mention about it on the website (Article 1300 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation)
3) The client is satisfied with everything, we have an agreement with him which describes the presence of our logo
In this case, there are no violations of the obligations stipulated by the agreement on your part, you performed the work in accordance with the instructions of the customer.

Answer 10

Ethics doesn't do that.
It seems to me that you yourself have a small portfolio, and you simply decided to increase it through this work ...