continued
from page 5
To protect their business and reputations,
design firms need robust information
and technology management policies.
Copyright Exposures
A failure to secure adequate licenses
for expensive business and design
software remains an area where many
architectural firms develop a blind
spot. Software vendors are aggressively
trying to counter this issue with
measures such as auditing their customers’
licenses. Voluntary audits may be
done by an A&E firm itself, by
a consultant, or by the software vendor.
Involuntary audits typically take
place after a software vendor or industry
group is tipped off about illegal
software use.(28)
To ensure that they have —
and can document — licenses
for everyone using the software, firms
should actively conduct periodic software
audits. Firms also should take a proactive
approach to avoiding the use of pirated
software by developing a software
management policy and communicating
it to their employees.(29)
Companies also can consider buying
third-party software-auditing programs.(30)
A firm’s information management
policy should address new hires and
include contracts that forbid the
use of material owned by third parties,
most typically former employers. As
employees move from firm to firm,
they may bring with them copies of
work that they had performed for previous
employers. The policy forbidding the
use of such materials should apply
not only to architectural and engineering
designs, but also to software that
is developed in-house in order to
prevent a programmer from deciding
to save time by using a bit of code
developed for a previous employer
or borrowed from open-source software
involved in a license dispute. Many
software development companies now
routinely scan their programs to make
sure there are no bits of borrowed
code or open-source code that may
make them a target for litigation.(31)
To avoid getting embroiled in open-source
software copyright disputes, firms
should seek indemnification from providers
of Linux services. Computer companies
such as Hewlett-Packard Co. have said
that they will indemnify customers
that buy Linux to run on HP computers
against any legal claims by SCO.(32)
Linux distributor Novell, Inc., which
sold the Unix rights to SCO, also
said that it will indemnify customers
against claims from SCO.(33)
Exposures Related to Ownership
of Design
When it comes to physical designs,
firms need to protect their own copyright
interests and limit their potential
liabilities. To ensure that commissioned
work is not reused or used improperly,
firms should institute procedures
to inventory and archive information,
control access to designs in progress,
and maintain system logs.
Because of the ease with which electronic
documents can be copied, firms without
an adequate digital-rights management
plan may stand to lose substantial
profits from projects for which they
are not being compensated. The same
kind of technology that allows software
and music pirates to make thousands of illegal copies of a disc
also makes it easy for a client to
copy complex designs and reuse them
over and over.
In most cases, architects and engineers
retain ownership of their designs
and only through explicit release
can third parties use the design for
other projects. Design contracts should
state clearly which party retains
ownership rights for the work and
under what circumstances it may be
reused or modified. To protect their
intellectual property in the event
of a dispute, firms should register
their copyrights as part of a comprehensive
digital-rights management program.
For example, the Texas architects
who won the $5.2 million judgment
over the repeated use of housing designs
said that they always register their
designs with the U.S. Copyright Office
because of the potential for infringement
in multiple-unit housing projects.(34)
Managing Electronic Documents
Running a paperless office doesn’t
free a firm from the need to manage
documents ranging from human resources
records to client enquiries and sealed
final plans. While electronic documents
are easily created, they may just
as easily be forgotten or misplaced.
In a lawsuit, however, being able
to find the right document may mean
the difference between winning and
losing. In addition, a firm’s
reputation can be hurt by allegations
of sloppy record keeping.
To avoid potential problems, firms
need procedures to manage all of their
electronic documents. A formal records-management
program can help improve the overall
management of a firm, its projects,
and its business communications.(35)
Such a program will lay out which
documents are to be retained, how
they can be retrieved, and which documents
can be destroyed on a given schedule.
This should cover not only project
documents, but also internal business
records such as accounting, human
resources, marketing, and, especially,
e-mail.
A key consideration is the length
of time that documents should be retained
for both business and legal purposes.
Records that are not to be retained
permanently should be destroyed according
to legal requirements and on a specific
schedule. Documents should not be
kept longer than necessary nor be destroyed randomly because doing so
may create a negative impression in
a legal dispute. That is particularly
true for e-mail, treatment of which
has proven to be among the most contentious
issues in legal disputes.
continued
on next page>>
1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8
|
