This is really fucked up. I'm sorry that this happened to you devthedev.
Yup. This is a snippet of our last communication. (July 7th, 2015)
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I sold him a license to use and modify the software. Not ownership of code.
It was a complete sale and transfer of the domain and everything related to Passphrase.io. There was no discussion of licensing.
You guys are not quite on the same page I think.
That's for sure. US copyright law states that transfer of copyright ownership is not valid unless explicitly stated in a written and signed contract. This never took place, and I neither discussed nor had any intentions of handing over copyright ownership. I sold a license to use a copy of the software, plus the domain and user base that came along with the domain. Dev still owns the license to use and modify the code, and he is free to use it on another domain. In fact, I will now give him my permission to sell and distribute the version of code that he has (which is different from what is running on my server since I went through and completely changed the back end). However, that doesn't mean that I have to give up my right to sell my own copyrighted intellectual property.
The bigger issue, in my opinion, is that he tried to sell a domain that he doesn't own. He claims he didn't know that it expired, so as far as I'm concerned, this case is closed and I will remove myself from the conversation.
You retroactively converted the sale into a lease, I thought I was dealing in ethical business like a reasonable person, not signing up for a contest in copyright wankery.
Quoted for reference.
