Thank you for your efforts Marc. I appreciate your willingness to engage in these discussions and take our questions/concerns to Deltek’s lawyers.
For whatever it’s worth, I would ask that MasterSpec users be allowed the same sort of option from Deltek that copyright law allows … in other words, users wouldn’t HAVE to include a notice, but users CAN add Deltek’s example notice if they desire to. Assuming of course the specification(s) is(are) edited for a particular project, etc. in accordance with the license agreement. I wouldn’t propose allowing removal the out-of-the-box notice from an unedited MasterSpec master (well at least not all of them … some version of a copyright notice appears three times in each section … and no they don’t always agree on the date).
I spoke to my Senior VP today and I’m preparing a summary of the comments from this string for him and the legal department.
The EULA (see link in string above) is much better than the version from last spring, and infinitely better than the older one from the previous company. The new version (Which I am just now reading) incorporates comments I made to legal this fall. They DO and HAVE listened. If any of you have additional comments on the EULA …not yet discussed …please post them. They will be forwarded to the top of our organization and to the legal department.
We may be able to build an FAQ for common questions so future customers will understand what we have discussed here.
I would like to request clarification whether inserting the author’s company and project name in the copyright notice is a requirement or our option. I have no interest in copyrighting portions of specification documents prepared by my firm, so would rather not go to the trouble of changing the notice for every project.
I plan to include the copyright provisions in the footer on every page. Honestly, I don’t see how it would serve the intended purpose if located at a single location in the Project Manual.
P. S. My standard proposal/agreement includes language about copyright restrictions, so users are on notice and the provisions would presumably be enforceable if necessary.