Copyright

[Tom Jenkins]

Jim, I want to make a clear distinction between your supplier using passwords and copyright protection on ladder logic and withholding passwords on instrument calibrations.

If they developed the ladder logic and it contains proprietary algorithms or proprietary techniques then they are within their rights in protecting the program, and their "mistake" was in not disclosing ahead of time that they would do so.

On the other hand, if these are third party flow meters and the pasword is simply protecting scaling and other set up data, then refusing to provide this information on instruments you paid for and own is nothing short of extortion!

Based on your last post I agree that this supplier sounds pretty shady. I strongly suggest that you have your attorneys involved in the $6,000 pay off to make sure that all necessary info is provided and that the supplier is agreeing to give you full access rights. Note, however, that getting attorneys involved will add at least a three month delay to your getting the info.

 

[JRW]

strebej

I thought you might find this interesting.

http://www.runmode.com/canopener/canopbuy.html

 

[Gerry]

From what you've said (large company buying from small supplier), I would say you should have a strong negotiating position; i.e. do they prefer $6000 period, end of story - or would they prefer on-going business? Either way, I think getting lawyers involved will just cost both sides more.

 

[Vetteboy]

Vetteboy said: "I think all these protectionist tactics are counterproductive to the advancement of civilization. The bottom line is that those who have will take as much money as they can from those who have not."

I respectfully disagree. The intent of the American founding fathers in designing patent and copyright law was specifically to promote the advance of technology, industry, and the arts.

The problem is that the American founding fathers didn't design Patent and Copyright law. If those laws were patented or copyrighted the U.S. would have to pay their European forefathers a royalty to use the laws. Those people copying software, music, or ladder logic could be seen as seeking "freedom" and "independence" from "The Man".

Just a thought.....

 

[David_Emmerich]

ETHICS

strebej
I completely agree with your course of action....I use to work for a large plastic bottle mfg, and we treated ANY program that we wrote under corporate confidentiality procidures..Please excuse the spelling...any and all machines W/ programs were specified as complete and un-protected in any way with full documentation....as long as this is / was specified up front it does not come back to bite you later on. Thanks for bringing up an interesting subject...it has been very enlighting to read all of the responses.

David beerchug

 

[RRobbins]

I think you got what you wanted. The OEM has the right to protect YOU, in that you cannot make ANY changes to his code or copy it. If you were to make changes, he has the right to cancel your warrenty and YOU will assume all responsibilty for damages or injuries. If PLC code is properly written and documented, you should not have to see it or change it. Any adjustments, presets, etc. should be on an operator screen and those set points limited with Min-Max settings.

Vetteboy asks:
If you copyright a rung of logic, can I copyright my hardwiring?

Dale Earnhart had his autograph copywrited and soon the rest of the Winston Cup guys followed suit. Why? Thieves were stealing his autograph and selling it on T-shirts, window stickers, etc.

 

[ganutenator]

Interesting twist (well...maybe)

You just have to put the right spark of information into the head of someone with a different background from you to get amazing results.

- Like that alot!!
so...

"You only have to put the right spark of information. Into the head of someone with a different background than you. To get the most amazingly imaginable results!!"
[copyright 2002 Mike Hendrickson]

Just kidding.

By the way, ech....um......


Can I use that in my book. I couldn't more strongly agree with your statement.



BUT,

As any professional arguer, such as myself, should know. There is always more than two sides to each controversial subject; such, have we seen here.


I had the opportunity to witness the following:

Company A - OEM
Company B - Customer
Company C - Equipment Manufacturer


Company A had an idea for an awesome application. He bought a PLC from Company C, some electrical components, and a small Hoffman enclosure. Company A made a standalone replacement part for a machine that was troublesome to company B. Company A agreed to allow company B use this product as a demo for a time period to see if they liked it. Company B agreed to purchase X amount of the product if they wanted to use it.

Company B liked the product. They liked it so much that they showed it off to Company C. Company C liked it also. They reverse engineered it and sold it to Company B beating out Company A.

Company A tried to sue Company C. Company C held up in court because the plc program was definetely different than Company A's. Also, the PLC was made by Company C. AND, most of the parts, were made by Company C.

Company A was an individual, starting his own company. This sale to a major customer would have really helped his company to get started.

Maybe if company A had included the documented plc program, the thief would have used it, and Company A would have had a stronger case. [Just an interesting twist]

Guess that my point is.


| |-------( )
[Copyright 2002 Mike Hendrickson]

Why bother

 

[Eric Nelson]

Such is Life...

Here's a similar tale....

Company A - OEM #1
Company B - OEM #2
Company C - Potential Customer

Company C has both Company A and B quote a large project for them.

Company A has a great idea for the project which Company C is very impressed with. Company B has a lousy idea for the project, but Company C has used Company B before.

Additionally, Company A had provided a concept drawing along with the quote to help visualize how they'd accomplish the project, which really helped Company C see that this idea was "the way to go".

Company C shares this concept with Company B, even though Company A requested that it be kept confidential.

With this knowledge, Company B is now able to quote Company C a better price than Company A, and therefore gets the job.

Such is life...

beerchug

-Eric

 

[Mel]

All well and good...

Copyrights and passwords have their place. There is nothing wrong with a firm or individual trying to protect their work and investment as well as make money on their efforts....

BUT

There is another issue:

WE still have to get the job done!

I have been in both sets of shoes, contractor and end-user. As a end-user, it really sucks to be at the mercy of an OEM.

Although it is too late in this situation, ALWAYS get the vendor to agree to your terms up front, and if they don't, shame on them if they lose your business.

 

[SAK-CO TECH]

Hi All,

Once again, an excellant site! I wish I knew about this site and its excellant contributor's 15 years ago.

This is a very serious topic, at least from an OEM's point of view. Take for example in my case. I was a G.M. for my former employer for which we developed laser guided hoisting systems ranging from 1/2 ton to 5 ton capacities traversing from 50 fpm to 500 fpm. The programs I develop for these hoists are fairly complex (Well, maybe not to some of the gentlmen here, but certainly to the average PLC'r).

One of the first customers we installed our equipment and automation for decided to use thier "expert" programmer to make some changes to the PLC code. Having been new at that time to PLC's, I did not password protect the program. To make a long story short, the "expert" programmer changed one bit (out of about 700) from NC to NO (just one bit!) so when the customer started the equipment back up,
they had a runaway hoist which consequently then knocked the poor maintenance guy up on the line into a tank of acid (Damn near killed him). Talk about lawyers.

It's not just about intellectually property but more importantly human life in some cases. This all can be handled quite well between OEM's and Customers if (as stated before) everything is settled before the project begins. Some customers want the program and that's fine if they pay a small fee for the program and documentation, and sign a realease of liability, others, after explaining the above story and other details would rather have my company do all the service and changes. This way the customer is always right!

I have started my own company now (been in business for about 6 months) and you can bet your sweet *** that any equipment and/or programming will be password protected unless a release of liability is signed.

Once agian, you folks are most excellant,
Chris

 

[nif]

Hello !
I have to desagree with most of the replies. I think a company should have the right to protect their source code. At least in the project where you have bought a eg. machine not the code..!
Companys have developed the machine code and used money to do it, why would it always be in such a form that an other company eg. in the same field can use it for their own purpose ?( don't spend any money on development)

I've work with projects that the customer or representant in the far east (taiwan,korea,china and so on..) have copied the programs and sell the system in their own name...! Then they call to Finland when it's not working even if we didn't make the system !!

It's a little bit like microsoft, they don't give you the source code..

The other good reason NOT to give the code is that (quit commonly) the customer goes and change something in the programs or add things , then when something goes wrong the supplier gets the fault.

 

[jdbrandt]

life, live it

SO, at the end of the day, the 'rogue' company has recieved their
$6,000 fee, and the end user has what he wants. Of course, for
reasons and originations unknown and undisclosed, the PLC
author will be declared persona-non-grata, and never do another
job for "mr. Big". Mr. Big has this right, of course, to do
business how he pleases.

I'm guessing everyone has seen instances where someone from the
'outside' was blamed for shortcomings on the 'inside' (untrained
persons, startup rushes, etc.). Its always easier to blame
the outsider....

We take it well, I always thought. I don't mind some person
yelling at me for his shortcomings, as long as I'm 'on-the-clock'
(getting paid an hourly fee, for you non-US types). Go ahead,
try to ruin my day. I'll go to meetings and discuss any topic,
with as many people as you can round up. Just pay me.

As for Eric N's ideas in a proposal being stolen, the following
happened to me:

Company A: Systems Integrator (my company at the time)
Company B: a competing Systems Integrator
Client :

Client wanted to show the engineer from Company A the quotation
(not just sketches) from Company B, and find out why Company B's
price was lower than Company A's. This is not only deceptive,
but un-ethical. Meeting was terminated, quote was cancelled .

Better yet, a sign in my wife's hair salon:
"Please don't tell us how cheap our competition is....
... only they know the value of their time."

I agree with a few posters ago.... time for a new thread..

 

[strebej]

I can't believe you guy's are still discussing this topic. I guess it means more to some people than it does to others. I thought I would do one last post just to bring anybody who was interested up to date on where this controversial subject ended up at. Just before I put the final payment check in the mail to the company that I purchased the equipment from I needed to call them . I actually had two checks one was the final payment ($15,000) for the equipment and start up service that was to be preformed at a later date. The second check ($ 6,000) was for the PLC password and symbol table file. Anyway back to the phone call.. I informed the plant manager that I had received the two checks from accounting sitting on my desk. I told him that I needed to assign a invoice No. to the checks before I could mail them. I asked him what No. he wanted me to use. He told me to forget it! that the invoice was written off as a loss and to keep the money and that they have closed the books on this account and has removed us from their customer list. WHOO! what was he doing now?.. At this point I was fed up with this man and his company.. I told him that was fine with me and hung the phone up. Now that I look back on it I believe one maybe, two issues were at work here. I believe that they were not confident in themselves to complete the job and / or they did not trust their own programming. I will now reset the PLC erasing their program and upload my own program into it. In order for me to be able to write the program I will need to reverse engineer the I/O wiring. I have a wiring diagram but it is vague as to how it’s wired. This unit was purchased for $ 250,000 it is used as a fuel delivery system for a boiler. The only regrets I have is that the original contract should have stated that my company would require full access to the PLC software. Also I feel that by this company refusing to accept their final payment they have absolved themselves of any workmanship responsibility and / or warranty on their equipment. My personal belief is that when you purchase a piece of equipment that requires a PLC and therefore a PLC program, and that this piece of equipment would be totally worthless without it. Also keeping in mind that the price of the equipment included the time / service to have the PLC programmed!! and that the equipment was never intended to be built in a certain permanent form and remain there forever. This equipment will need to change it’s operating parameters as the equipment that it services needs change. I believe that Firmware and any software burned on a PROMM Chip should be copyrighted. I’m having a hard time trying to find an appropriate analogy for this problem. But I feel like I been sold a deck of cards that I’m only allowed to play one type of game with.


Jim S.

 

[RBergmann]

I've been following this with some interest and must have missed the following scenario, one that I think is plainly mercenary.

Many of us are contract programmers or integrators that are paid specifically for our ability to create system configurations for other's products or inventions. My customer base consists of machine designers and builders that don't have the expertise to write the code necessary to sequence their equipment.

I write the code, they give me a check that pays for the development and debug of that code. Once they are satisfied then I turn over all the code as well as the rights to it, no passcodes.

Really now, why would I want to maintain posession of the rights except for extortion purposes. This code is so proprietary to their equipment that I don't even have a market place to sell it. Something happens to me, they're screwed.

I've just been through a situation much as I've described where the integrator had billed and been paid to develop code, password protected this code and wouldn't give the password to his customer. This ensured that each time code loading (into new equipment) and modifications were required, they got paid. My position is that they have been paid both for development and for modifications. Now they've lost their only programmer and cannot supply this service but they still want to get a kick back for allowing their customer's own programmer to get access to the code.

Now if I design and program a piece of equipment (on my own dime) that I plan to market as a product and want to keep under control, then yes, absolutely, I have the right to protect my investment in intellectual property as well as my liability against the code modification.



Whew!
... rab