Re: Styles for User Guides

[Sharon Burton-Hardin <sharonburton -at- EMAIL -dot- MSN -dot- COM>]

I think you are confusing copyright with ownership. It isn't that the
template is copyrighted - I am not sure that you could copyright that -,
rather the client owns what they paid for.

The generic templates that Frame and Word ship with are obviously not owned
since they are shipped to be used by the people using these products. They
have put these in the public domain to be used by people using these
product. If you used these without alteration for a client, then the client
doesn't own the template because it is public domain. They didn't request
custom template work and they didn't pay for custom template work. They
agreed to use a pre-existing template that no one owns.

But if they ask that you design a template especially for their manuals -
something I frequently do for a client - and pay you for that effort, then
they own the resulting template. Not the generic templates from Word or
Frame, but rather the resulting custom template that they paid for you to
create and use for their project(s).

You are still free to use the generic template again as a starting place for
future clients, just as you may have for the first. But I think that the
custom template you create at the client's request and that they paid you to
create belongs to the client and it is unethical to reuse that exact
template for another client.

It really is that same as visiting a friend at her place of work and then
lifting the template her company uses because you like it and then using it
for your own clients. I think that most people would agree that you were
stealing something. How is it different because you created the template?

sharon

Sharon Burton-Hardin
President of the Inland Empire chapter of the STC
www.iestc.org
Anthrobytes Consulting
Home of RoboNEWS(tm), the unofficial RoboHELP newsletter
www.anthrobytes.com
Check out www.WinHelp.net!
See www.sharonburton.com!

-----Original Message-----
From: Elna Tymes <etymes -at- LTS -dot- COM>

|
|And I say that, unless they specifically had you tailor a template uniquely
for
|them, such that they had a copy-protectable look and feel, they don't own
the
|template.  They own the content.
|
|Many of us start with templates that come with the word processing package
of
|choice.  If one were to apply your logic, then you'd give every client who
uses
|one of the standard Microsoft or Framemaker templates an opportunity to
|copyright what Microsoft and Framemaker already own.  And that doesn't make
|sense.

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