Upwork Contract

[3bb829d8]

I am in the process of contracting with an Upwork freelancer from India for the development of a quiz engine and the associated website. Where can I view the default Upwork contract to see what it contains so I am not duplicating efforts. I am especially interested in ownership of source code and website design components. Thanks.  

[prestonhunter]

By default, an Upwork client owns ALL work product when hiring a freelancer with an hourly contract.

You can read all Terms of Service (ToS) here:

Terms of Service

The part you are most interested in is called the "Optional Service Contract Terms". This is the DEFAULT agreement between freelancers and clients on Upwork. When a freelancer agrees to be hired for a contract, they agree to this.

But this contract is "optional" in the sense that the freelancer and client can make any contract they want between themselves. They can mutually agree to OTHER terms, including other ways to own or not own work product.

This contract includes the following snippet:

"Upon Freelancer’s receipt of full payment from Client, the Work Product (except for any Background Technology), including without limitation all Intellectual Property Rights in the Work Product (except for any Background Technology), will be the sole and exclusive property of Client..."

[prestonhunter]

This may help:

OWNERSHIP OF WORK PRODUCT AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

(There's a lot more on this page... I posted a highlight.)

[3bb829d8]

Thanks. Just what I was looking for.

[ravjv]

I am not sure how to say this but that is not what you are looking for if your concern is about code ownership because T & C only ensures the legal part of a contractual agreement, That is not how the software development world works.

There are software configuration tools like code versioning and user rights in a code repository that controls how code written for a software gets checked in, checked out and committed/modified  This process is a default practice to ensure code is of quality and bug-free along with other matters related to software development.

So, what you are looking for is such a repository where the project structure is created in the file system (it can reside in a cloud or in a server of your own) and developers are given access to resources only related to writing code, testers only to test code etc. so you need to be a stakeholder or a build administrator who can run builds i.e. the user rights that compiles the entire source code in the repository. This means that even though a programmer may have access to the source code, they would not be able to compile all the code into a website or a product.

I hope this is not an over-explanation and what you really were looking for was the T & C. If it was then this could prove useful to someone else looking for the technical equivalent of your question.

[prestonhunter]

re: "I am not sure how to say this but that is not what you are looking for if your concern is about code ownership because T & C only ensures the legal part of a contractual agreement..."

Except that the original poster specifically said he was interested in the ownership clauses in Upwork contracts.

Version-tracking and back-up software for source code is a legitimate topic, but that's not what this client was interested in.