Question regarding breach of contract

A bit of a tricky subject, so please bear with me.

I have been recruited to create some documentation regarding an upcoming game. The contract ended and the employer decided to not pay me, keeping all the documents I have done regarding system balance, interface, etc.

Considering he broke the contract in many different ways, and to top it off he decided to not pay me (with a very professional "what are you going to do about it lol"), I was wondering if that entitles me to use the documentation I have done as I see fit.

In other words: I have worked a couple hundred hours doing simulations and writing concepts, and d not want that work wasted. I am not going to see a single cent, but maybe it can help someone else. Do you think I can make such documentation public so that anyone can use it?

Kids like him are everywhere; my intention is not to damage his project, but to make some positive use of my work.

Thoughts?

 

Thoughts? Get a lawyer.

 

First thing.

To avoid this kind of situation in the future:

You either use escrow service provided by a third party (which handles disputes and arbitration), or do not hand over the deliverables until you're paid, no matter what.

Working hundreds of hours without payment is insane, in my opinion.

Regarding your question:
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What are the terms of contract? This sounds like something that requires a lawyer. Basically, if you were contracted to create something for other party, signed contract that required you to hand over the right to said party, and the other side breached the contract.... I'm not sure if that means that the rights to the work are yours. Consult a lawyer.

Also it could be a ground for lawsuit, if law works in your country and if you have proof of contract.
----

Either way... reasonable actions in this situation would be:

1. (aka "Honorable Samurai" route). Forget about it. Learn the lesson, and never let this happen again. Record him to your personal blacklist and never work with him again.
2. (aka "I shall seek vengeance!" route). Rat the guy out to his employer and defame him via social media (facebook, twitter, etc). Don't be rude, act in polite business like manner. Ask when you're going to be paid. On his facebook page/twitter feed. Elevate the situation to the employer (if the dude subcontracted you to do his job). Post an article about this guy on your blog. Again, in polite, business-like manner.
3. (aka "I believe in law"). Lawsuit. Depending on your country's code of law, breach of contract may be punishable. Also see Epic Games vs Silicon Knights

I wouldn't release documentation to public without consulting a lawyer first. It shouldn't be a very complex matter, though so I doubt that lawyer consultation on this subject would cost too much.

 

Please note that I have accepted defeat. I do not want his money. All I want is to know if I can make the documents public, for everyone to make use of them. Maybe some new developer needs help making an RTS and can use my formulas and tables for his game.

As for your three options, I will do path #1. #2 will cost too much in cash and health; did it in the past and ended up very badly. #3 feels like too much effort for just this project, and could take too long.

Thanks for your time!

 

You'd definitely need a lawyer. If you did sign a contract with a nda clause & they wanted to they could probably take action against you for breaching it. It wouldn't matter if you hadn't been paid as that is likely to be treated as a separate issue.

Standard disclaimer: I am not a lawyer so seek professional advice.

 

That absolutely requires a lawyer, with 100% certainty.

The reason why it requires a lawyer is because it is unclear whether you would be entitled to the rights of your work when the other side breached the contract. I think the answer to that may wary depending on your country. Wrong action can result in you getting sued back (depending on nuttiness of your ex-client).

I'd cough up money for a lawyer visit in this case. It is something that is worth knowing either way.

P.S. I believe in general those kinds of things are handled as disputes in a court ("administrative court" or something like that)

 

It really depends. How much of the work is dependent on preexisting IP from the employer? Releasing any employer owned IP into the public domain is likely to open you up to law suits from them. You could sue them for not paying. They could sue you for releasing their IP. You have the potential to loose a lot of hair over this one.

The next thing to consider is how likely the employer is to sue. Chasing contract violations across international borders is difficult. If you are in a different country go ahead and release. Its not like they can do anything about it anyway. If you are in the same country its still worth considering releasing. If the employer is up to a bunch of dodgy practices, its not likely they want to sue and open their business up to scrutiny.

I'd go for release. With a very professional "What are you going to do about it?" But I don't know all the ins and outs of your situation. This may be very bad advice.

Talk to a lawyer.

 

Getting mixed messages, so I guess I'll talk with a lawyer.

(just kidding about the mixed messages)

Today I'll ring a couple and will present my case. Will keep this thread updated so that others in my position can know what to do.

Talk in a couple days!

 

Welcome to the discussion forum.

 

Do you still have all the email exchanges? If you've got all the evidence you need that you were conned I personally dont think you should let him get away with it for free

 

I design games for passion, so not going to sour my day trying to find ways on how to get back to a little man like this individual. What I would like is to help others with my work, and not let it go to waste in his incapable hands.

 

Would've been true if it was a hand written correspondence sent via snail mail. With just a email you may need to prove that he's the one who sent it.

 

Yup, and my case is even worse: skype conversations

 

If it is voice conversation that hasn't been recorded, then you're probably out of luck.
If it is skype text chat, then it sits on the skype server (which is linked to guy's financial data) and would be slightly more credible than email.

Either way, the only right action here is "lawyer".

Just don't do this kind of thing again, alright?

Spoiler

"hundreds of hours without getting paid"... just why?

 

I record everything, voice and text, and back it up on the cloud.

Already presented my case to a couple lawyers, we'll see how that goes.

I tend to trust people. I get scammed, yes, but at least I can look at myself in the mirror knowing that I did what was right.
Will be more selective with who I do business with in the future.

 

Humanity isn't a nice thing. We can like to think that everyone else is just as nice as ourselves but the painful truth of the matter is they are not. So do yourself a favour, and try not to be so trusting of those who have not earned it

 

It is less about "trusting people" and "being selective" and more about leaving no opportunity for them to screw you over.
Be nice and polite, but leave no opening for them to run off with your work without paying. Once you've worked with someone for few weeks or months, you can drop your guard a bit, and not treat every payment as hollywood briefcase/hostage exchange scene.

 

How long was it before he ripped you off? Days? Weeks?

 

Technically since day one, as apparently he never had any intention of paying.

But the last conversation and chargeback was just a couple days ago.

 

Well when was day 1?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chargeback_fraud

 

Good luck with proving that with an ocean between you and the fraudster. I lost a plead on this because a close family member was the head of the bank used by the scammer. All they did was bombard my bank with biased and foreign with technical and legal jargon, ending up dismissing my case.

 

I understand that.

However, if it isn't the first time it happened, consider finding some sort of escrow service which would protect you in the future from this kind of thing.

 

How can you use an escrow service on documentation such as a GDD, when there is a constant back-and-forth between the designer and the project leader?

Or maybe I was doing it wrong? Should've I just done everything and sent it in one go, no revisions allowed?

 

You negotiate the price. Buyer puts money into escrow. You check the escrow and see that it has required amount (if it doesn't, you don't start working). You start working. You communicate back and forth, exchanging data freely.

Buyer decides that he's not going to pay. However, he cannot take money back from the escrow. You insist that you did what he asked. However, you also cannot take money in the escrow.

You two start arbitration. Escrow representative studies your project, documentation and deliverable, including communication and attachments that are still stored on site. Based on collected data, the "judge" makes a decision, releasing money to you (service provider), making partial refund to buyer, and the like. That's how it worked on a service that is now gone.

The trick is that once money is in the escrow, it stays in the escrow, if buyer tries chargeback, escrow is dealing with it, and because the escrow service is not affiliated with either of you, it is supposed to be neutral party.

That's how it is SUPPOSED to work.

The issue is that I can't recommend any specific service at the moment, because the site I used for this kind of thing is now dead and has been absorbed by different company. However, it is supposed to be a fairly standard feature on most of the freelance resources.

 

So it's basically like a middleman. What is the average fee or commission for such a service? Can you recommend any?

 

I used to do some work (as a Buyer) through a site years ago that is still around: Guru

It basically acts as an escrow service but they pay when the buyer approves. This is typically broken down into milestones though so the buyer pays Guru up front, Guru holds the money, you do some work for the first milestone, the buyer approves and then Guru pays you out of the money they are holding... continues like that til the full project is done.

Your risk then becomes the work done on the first milestone. So the trick is to stage the work accordingly and keep milestone targets small.

 

Excellent, many thanks!

 

The lawyers I contacted charge me too much for this case. Does anyone know of any firm that may deal with this kind of issues pro-bono or charity? Again: I am not looking for cash, just want to know if I can openly distribute the docs I made

 

I don't think you will find one for free as those cases are usually for the general good or something while your case just seems to be bad contract or no legal contract at all. Someone giving you a green light to spread the stuff freely would have to do a lot of research themselves first based on the info you provide or etc. and it can take a lot time to be sure to say such things.

 

I understand. OK, then I'll file this case under "mistakes to learn from" and be done with it.

Thanks a lot for everyone's time and interest on this.

The bottom line is: make sure you know who you are doing business with. If not sure, get a middleman or escrow service.

 

If you have not signed a contract then you're free to do whatever you wish with your work. It is yours. The other party would have to sue you and then you can provide evidence in the form of drafts and so on - which would cost them.

The best way to work isn't actually escrow, but simply milestones. If something isn't working out early on, it can be dealt with early on with minimal losses.

I see this often on forums - people enter into verbal agreements and naively expect the internet to contain only honest people :/

 

There is a signed contract. It's even certified digitally

 

I just thought of another option. If you did not specifically assign copyright to him, you can issue DMCA take down notices to anyone that distributes his game (assuming he is using your material). They are legally obligated to do something about it. I am not a lawyer and this may be full of holes.

 

Actually, here's what I'll do. I'll post here the template I modified for the contract, so you can give me your non-lawyer opinion. Feel free to use this template for your own projects.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/pird41ejtfq3qnc/Freelancer Contract.rtf?dl=0

 

Nope. The site I used for this has died, and situation changed since that time. Basically google "freelance escrow".

Which country?

IF they're weekly milestones, then yes, it can work too.

 

I looked in Italy and US.

Weekly milestones it is!

 

That's reasonable.

For the clients you never worked with before you could go about it like this: demonstrate that you have the stuff without sending a usable version of it(video, screenshots, watermarked lowres draft, etc). Once they've paid, you transfer it over.

As I said, it seriously resembles hollywood hostage exchange scenes. Escrow allows working without this nonsense. Partial upfront payment is also an option.

 

Yeah, or be a corporate slave and work in a big studio.

That said, did anyone have a look at the contract I posted earlier?

 

In my very non-lawyer opinion, I think you're safe releasing the docs. Just be sure to scrub them of any IP specific names/terminology. I'm basing this off of the Cancellation clause where you state that rights revert back to you. It's not 100% crystal clear though, but I think it's a reasonable argument that non-payment is the same as cancellation. In the future I'd also add in a section on material breach of contract reverting the rights back to you to make things even clearer.

 

You've got a very clear cancellation clause in there. I would simply send the client an email telling them "Based on non payment you consider the contract cancelled. As per the terms of the agreement they have no right to use any of the work produced by you. All rights to the work have now reverted to you." Then you can release the work or sell it to another client or do whatever you feel like with it.

Its also worth noting that your contract has a clause requiring payment in advance. If you had stuck to your side and not done work before the payment you wouldn't be in this situation. The client may have a legal out in saying that they did not pay for the work, so you did it off your own back. That still means they can't use your work, but it does reduce the chance of you making a claim for payment.

 

So in any case, according to you, I can use my own work as I see fit?

 

Yes. Not only that, but it looks like you can prevent the client from using your work.

Standard disclaimer that I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.

 

Of course. Still waiting and looking for a firm that could take on my charity case...

 

Lawyer up. If they did not pay you for what you made/did for them as per the agreement then they do not own it. Period. If they refuse to pay you can just as easily sue them for copyright infringement.

Trust me, lawyer up. They will pay you, one way or another.

 

Sucks what happened to you, but if you don't want to work for free, why would you expect a lawyer to? I would think any settlement you won would/could? include legal fees.

 

Which is exactly why when I do work, I'll record documented proof (or photos if applicable), and once money is received I will send. After all, why would I do all the work, get money and not send it anyways? That would be retarded if someone thought you'd do that, because it's finished why not send it.

So that's how I do work, unless I've been working with them for like a year straight, no late payments, etc.
Then I'll give a little lead-way with trust. But just one single time a payment is even late, give me my money if you want more updates sent your way, otherwise I'll go somewhere else to make money.

Now obviously if I was working in-studio for a real established company things would be different obviously as that's a real job. But I suppose learn from this and move on man, unless it's really that serious and you can afford to get a Lawyer, then do it even if it's just to prove a point.