I’ve been trying for 3 weeks to get through to Deltek to renew my MasterSpec subscription, which expires in a few days. Despite phone messages and email through their website contact page, I have rec’d no response and am not able to get to a person through their convoluted phone maze.
Is anyone else having this problem or know a solution?
This is making me very nervous about the ownership change.
Did you receive the emailed DocuSign electronic invoice? The subject line on mine starts with “MasterSpec License Renewal for…” The actual email address it comes from ends in “docusign.net” but the sender shows up in my Outlook as “Tyler Foley-Kerr via DocuSign.”
Before I received this, I received an email from “Avitru + Deltek Customer Success,” actual email address “renewal@avitru.com” telling me that I’d get a DocuSign email.
It all could have gone to your spam folder.
Thanks for the info, Liz – I appreciate your response.
No invoice has been rec’d, and I check spam several times daily. It’s good to hear there is a mechanism for renewal, although I’m not sure why it hasn’t reached me.
The only “notice” rec’d is an automated message when using MasterWorks, which advises to call the 800 number.
I’ll try white listing the addresses you referenced and sending an email to the Avitru renewal address.
I have asked technical support to investigate
Good luck!
Thank you, Mark – that is great.
Marc, sorry!
Success!
Rec’d message from my new “account manger” saying DocuSign is on the way.
Thanks for the help – 4specs forum users never let me down!
I’d love to take credit for that but they may have been on it already…in any case 1 down and 1 to go..I’m interested in the docusign thing.
Apparently it was the email to renewal@avitru.com that prompted the response. That was quick and effective: I’m now signed up for another year. And I have a name & email address for a customer rep. My faith is restored!
btw: I normally subscribe for 4 years to take advantage of the discount offered w/ multi-year subscriptions. I’m taking a wait-and-see approach this time to make sure the transition to Deltek works out. I’m especially wary that SpecBuilder Cloud or other alternatives to MasterWorks will be pushed. This would have a very negative effect on my practice.
granted I’m on the inside, but I’ve really seen commitment from Deltek to help us advance the product.
That is very good to hear.
I for one am truly pleased to have Marc “representing” our constituency!
I hope you carefully read the newest license agreement, or had your attorney review it. It contains some surprises. Remember, everything is negotiable.
Hoo boy! No – I accepted it with only a glance, assuming it was similar to the previous one.
I will read it now that you made your excellent point, Guest. If you care to share your take on the surprises, it would be much appreciated – and might further the discussion in this forum.
I did happen to notice that users are required to include the copyright notice on all distributed spec documents. Interestingly, the version in the agreement differs from the one in MasterSpec section footers. This is presumably an oversight.
Jeffrey, note that you can remove the copyright notice from your projects’ specifications. “Licensee may not remove or modify any copyright or trademark notices on MasterSpec (except in the case of the Licensee’s project specifications) …”
We expect you to remove/modify the header and the footer and replace elements of them with your own. however you must have the copyright (somewhere) on every product you publish. we are vague about where.
(Marc’s humble opinion not Deltek policy below) I would suggest (but I’m not a lawyer) placing the copyright notice on the pages of the TOC and then on the first page of any subsequent Addendum or separately published bid package or spec section, so that any user picking up any separately published document from your firm understands that this product is copyrighted.
(Back to official policy)
This has always been a requirement on our agreement with the AIA, we are required to have customers include the watermark which was missing previously. Since our base product is a Microsoft Word file. It has no software lock on it and it is possible to open and use the file with or without a valid license. This statement was added to the footer of MasterSpec documents this year in Q2 to make clearer to users that the content is indeed licensed by the AIA and managed by Deltek. We want to make sure the user understands that they must have a current license to use the product. As these files are often transmitted to others it is important for those receiving any WORD files, to also know, that they too need a valid license. LOCKED PDFs may be transmitted to others without the other having a license.
(The sentence in the footer (named a “watermark”) accomplishes that task.
so that being that, I’m sure you all will have some question or another. please post them here and I will bundle them up and send them to the legal folks to give specific answer. AFTER turkey day. remember as someone noted above. call them and negotiate, ask for clarification if things are not clear. I am not part of the legal department and I can only offer up what i believe to be the answer.
That’s interesting, NaL. I searched the agreement and did not find any such exception. All references to copyright and the Avitru “watermark” (which is what they call the copyright notice) require it to be included. Only one reference to “trademark” was found, and I did not find the phrase you quoted.
Apparently there is more than one version of the license agreement. I wonder if you’re looking at a recent version?
Thanks for the offer, Marc. In addition to resolving whether a single location would suffice for the copyright notice, here’s a question I’d think Deltek would be interested in resolving:
Which version of the “watermark” is valid – the one in the license agreement or the text in spec footers? The 1st has a 2018 copyright date and the 2nd is 2019, which suggests that the agreement is not up-to-date.
Aside from the date, the biggest difference is that the agreement version contains an extra sentence: I would sure like to avoid having to replace the project name in every watermark if included in each footer.
Interesting indeed. This was from the terms I was required to acknowledge having read and my agreement to in order to download the most recent MasterSpec updates. I couldn’t seem to locate a current copy of any other agreement or terms of service anywhere else. If they are available in another location that I’m not finding, please feel free to provide a link.
Marc, assuming I’m not overlooking anything, feel free to ask the legal team to provide a link to the current agreement in the “User Resources” portion of the website … or to otherwise make this available to review from within MasterWorks, e-SPECS software, SpecBuilder Cloud, etc.
Here is the copyright language in the footers of my current AIA MasterSpec sections:
Copyright 2019 by the American Institute of Architects. Warning: This AIA MasterSpec based document is protected by U.S. Copyright Law and International Treaties. A valid, current MasterSpec license is required for editing or use of this document.
I understand that I must have a valid, current license to edit MasterSpec specifications, but once I have edited a section for a project, it is my understanding that I am now the author of what is called a derivative work. I understand that copyright laws say that the original copyright still applies to the original work, but that it does not extend to the derivative portions of the work.
Which begs the question: What makes something derivative with regard to MasterSpec? Completely new and original paragraphs, certainly, but what about changing words in existing MS paragraphs? Does Deltek claim it is still the original copyright owner of that?
Because all of my “Masterspec based” documents are substantially modified before I publish them for projects, might I argue that all of what I produce is derivative? And because of that, unnecessary for me to include the copyright language in the footers of every section?
MasterSpec license appears to support that position - the current MS license agreement states:
(e) Licensee may copyright as a derivative work a project specification prepared by Licensee for use on Licensees specific construction projects (or for Licensees clients if Licensee is a specification consultant);
Which to me indicates that MS understands, and accepts, that the specifications prepared for a project are derivative, and copyright is now at the discretion of the author, as a derivative work, not MasterSpec. Would you agree?