Use md5 encryption as well for your php files, works well. It won’t stop your html being nabbed (and the app for that matter) but they won’t be able to make changes to the funcionality
Interesting points.
My take on this is that you have invested too much time and emotion on your problem with the client. If you have the contractual documentation, then sue them or sell the debt as someone here has suggested and move on.
I know its difficult, but your focus is affected by anguishing about it. This affects you moving forward, so try and put it out of your mind and move on.
By trying to delete pages of a client’s system you are just opening yourself up to further problems.
The lesson to be learnt here is to try (easier said than done) and be more careful with future clients. Get deposits paid, and only deliver the final updates once 70% to 90% of the project value has been paid. That way you reduce your risk on future projects.
Thinking about it I think you should just copy the site and take it down if you still can. Then they will pay you just watch!! If they want to sue you for the work they have paid you for good luck to them! 
Accessing the clients server without explicit permission from the client can be a very bad idea. I’m not a lawyer, but I think accessing a network without permission is a federal offense, so it can be very serious. If you’re in the U.S.
To remove copyrighted material from a website, you should file a DMCA takedown notice.
It’s meant for circumstances like this. (same stipulation as above)
The problem with that is that the client could be a developer themselves. I have a friend who is a full time web developer yet he’s employed people to work on his own personal site simply because he doesn’t want to do it himself.
The code shown can be easily edited out. My own personal favourite way to do it (though you’d need to either buy it or find someone with it) would be to encode the main php script with zend so that it cannot be edited. I’d then include a url calling code to my own licensing server which would then give a ok or not ok - and the script then runs or quits like that. If anyone can then decode the zended work then as far as I’m concerned they’re welcome to it for all that agro.
Any other scripts (ie, say you have index.php and accounts.php) would also have this written into them so in effect if the client doesn’t pay it cripples everything. Even html pages with embedded php code… as long as its in there somewhere in each file the client will have no choice but to pay to keep their site enabled.
Cruel, harsh, even brutal but you won’t have many complaints after. Once paid you can either send them a licence file (which your script will look for each time to verify it can run OR contact your licence server) or just set a marker in your db - when the script next makes contact it sets its own marker on its own server and doesn’t bother making contact anymore.
“Cruel, harsh, even brutal but you won’t have many complaints after. Once paid you can either send them a licence file (which your script will look for each time to verify it can run OR contact your licence server) or just set a marker in your db - when the script next makes contact it sets its own marker on its own server and doesn’t bother making contact anymore.”
I have to agree with the other responses to the idea of a backdoor to takedown a site: it is a bad idea for a lot of obvious reasons.
It is much better to protect yourself on the front end by being selective about your clients and protect yourself on the backend through legal means of DMCA and good contracts.
Also, folks should not be developing data driven apps on their clients machines. It is much better (once again for a lot of obvious reasons) to develop on in a testing environment and migrate only at the appropriate time.
But I gotta admit it is a fun idea to think about 
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Admittedly I think you’re right… building the site offline, letting the client test it and then doing the sale is probably the better option but you’ll always have a stubborn one somewhere who insists its done on the server and in that scenario crippleware is the only way you’re guaranteed to get your money. Once you’ve got it then thats it, give them the code, file, login etc that they need and its then theirs permanently. Otherwise they get a 14 day trial period and half the site encoded so it will be useless if they try to shaft you 
Good for you… I’ve been there and have had to resort to the same sort of thing as well. My experience has been that once the site goes down or legal steps are taken, all of a sudden the payment comes through. As far as I’m concerned if they chose to deal with someone else in the future, that’s just fine but in the several occasions where this has occurred with us they have chosen to stay with us even though we initiated a full payment before services policy especially for them. Also fortunately this sort of thing doesn’t occur often.
Good luck going forward, it only gets better and being self employed is a learning process. I’ve also found that initiating a payment schedule that is described in the contract and invoicing regularly will lessen the chance of this sort of thing.
I’ve run into this issue in the past and it’s quite frustrating. A few things have helped me with the process:
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I have the client read and approve a modification contract before work begins. As you mentioned previously, this doesn’t always work for clients who won’t pay regardless. But it helps in case you need to prove it in court.
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I ask the client to pay for changes beforehand. To make it easier for clients, I place a payment page on my website. There, they can purchase whatever time they need and email any changes they want me to make. If the work requires more time, I let them know and ask them to purchase additional time.
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If I’ve made the changes and the client still hasn’t paid, I only keep the updates on my server until they are able to pay (when possible because this doesn’t always work).
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Some of my clients have authorized me to bill their credit card whenever updates are made. This works well as long as the client’s credit card information is valid.
it’s quite easy to change/define different paths and account details between your local dev server and the target server.
not had time to read the whole thread but my experiences of managing a building project over the last year have left me feeling naive believing all the stuff that is said about web design etc “you need a contract” etc etc.
as far as I know the law for a designer would be the same as anyone else doing work making or fixing something for someone.
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once an agreement has been made for a project to be undertaken for X cost, then a contract exists in UK law. In fact if they sack you before completion you can sue them, even without anything on paper.
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conversely, if agreed money is not paid then the person who did the work is entitled to come and remove it from your property. As long as they don’t need to break in to gain access, they are within their legal rights. It is their work and as such their property. They could walk in through an open back door or climb through a window, or be let in by a guest. It doesn’t matter. As long as they don’t have to break in it’s tough. There is no requirement for a grace period or a warning either.
Having had to deal with the deep end of building works and learning all this as I went along, and speaking to people who have or have run their own companies doing eg gas fitting, none of these scenarios are particularly uncommon.
Of course there are many other potential nightmare scenarios, but do you understand where I am coming from here?
- in British law an agreement is as legally binding as a written contract
- in British law the tradesperson is legally entitled to remove all of their work at any point until the bill has been paid.
Often in practice it comes down to a kind of face-off with bluffs and double bluffs. It’s civil court stuff not criminal court stuff anyway, but nobody really wants to pay solicitors etc etc.
I am now feeling very naive for actually having spent money getting a solicitor to draw up a contract for web design work. As far as evidence to show a court in the event of non-payment goes, a string of emails showing the salient points would be more than adequate. One thing to be aware of, though, is that dates and time-scales should be stated. Even then there is for both parties the legal concept of “reasonable” time for completion and payment - just as the work has to be done with “reasonable” skill.
One thing that has really screwed me up is that you are supposed to give an incompetent worker the chance to fix their bad work before you sack them if they thought they were going to complete the project. This just strings things out terribly - and if someone really is incompetent, one problem just leads to another. As an employer I now know - sack first, dare them to sue.
You would probably be within your legal rights to just delete your own work from their server.
IANAL, any comments appreciated as I feel like a sucker.
Certainly it’s true that any verbal or written communication that meets the requirement for an agreement/contract to be in place is legal and can be enforced. Written and formal contract language is not necessary and a verbal dialog and certainly establish a legally binding agreement.
That said, there is a reason that the traditional written contract is so important. There are degrees of enforceability that need to be considered with every agreement, and a string of emails is going to be much tougher to use in a legal dispute then a tidy, signed, contract.
A major element of a contract is the ‘meeting of the minds’ factor which is critical in contract law in both the US and the UK. This essentially requires both parties to have a real understand of what the agreement is before they enter in to it, and can be extended to require that both parties have essentially the same understanding of that agreement.
Something like that can get very tricky if the actual execution of the agreement wasn’t very tidy, clear, documented, etc. Trying to demonstrate that another party understand ALL of the terms of the agreement even though it was being discussed in the course of a greater dialog isn’t going to be as easy as it would be if you had a single document that had everything in it.
You will also have to demonstrate that the other party understood that an agreement was being established, that they compensation/consideration for that agreement was part of the execution of the agreement, and that the core terms of the agreement were clear to both parties who had the same understanding.
If you consider what a contract is actually for, how it might be used, and what the potential value of a solid contract can be in the event of a dispute, then you would probably not feel like a sucker for having a professionally written contract.
Just because a verbal or e-mail contract can constitute an agreement, that doesn’t mean that it’s good enough or well suited for doing business.
The original poster said they had a contract that stipulates they own the content until it is paid for. That’s fine, but he then goes on to say “Under US Copyright law, as I understand it, I retain full and complete ownership of my work product until it is either fully paid for or I transfer the ownership rights to another party.”
I want to point out that the majority of website development is done as what is legally called “work for hire”. No, you DON’T own the copyright to your work under work-for-hire. They hired you, they made the specifications, you produced to their requirements. They own it.
Your contract is unusual in its stipulation, and I’m not sure that it’s a good thing. If you own the copyright, and you reclaim the item, then there is no reason for them to pay you. They are simply declining the sale, no different than if you try on a sweater in a store and then don’t buy it. A good lawyer can make the case that they have no obligation to pay. (You, on the other hand, might have an obligation to sue them to take the site down, to enforce your ownership of the design). Whereas in work for hire, it’s a clear-cut labor contract dispute – you did the work, and there is no question that you are owed the money.
The law is very peculiar.
Actually, not quite. A “work for hire” would be more like a temp, where you are considered a temporary employee of the company which hired you (often with limited to no benefits).
However, most web developers work as “independent contractors”. It’s essentially the same as if you order some custom monogrammed slippers. The company that makes them isn’t working for you, they are creating a product for you. However, until you pay them, those slippers are legally theirs.
When running a business, you will have uncollectible accounts. It’s better to just cut your losses and make a new sale with a better long term client that will pay more than 50% upfront. I wouldn’t start projects for less than 50% upfront, and I’ve found that to be cumbersome because once the work is done, people want to skip out on payment.
The funny part is these types of clients usually have the least technical knowledge and php traps like the one stated above will work to make sure they have to pay another decent developer to fix the issue.
Creating proper terms or sales contracts would be the best idea. You could have a template made by a law professional that ensures you receive payment for your work, or you have the right not to pass on the files. You can use the same template and just fill in prices, customer name, and exact terms and conditions for the transaction. A law professional will help you cover every area extensively.
I’ll have to say “Not quite” right back. Most work for hire is produced not by temporary employees but by independent contractors. The difference between monogrammed slippers and a website is that a website is a design; it is a form of intellectual property. Intellectual property law is a separate specialty in law. Slippers have value whether or not they have a monogram, and have sales potential even if they are mis-monogrammed. A website as such has no value except to the client (though a template created for a client has potential independent value, and could be argued to be the contractor’s property).
One of the first things you learn when studying law is that it is rarely clear-cut. A lawyer finds a theory and argues from that. You point is certainly arguable, and so is mine.
My point, though, is that it is better, legally, if the website IS work-for-hire. Then, if no payment is made, there is a clear legal path for seeking redress. Under your theory, there is no obligation to pay for the site, just as the person who ordered the slippers doesn’t have to pay for them if he doesn’t like them. Of course it IS more complicated than that; intellectual property can be in two places at once, while slippers cannot, but intellectual property is a slippery slope, and by making relatively minor changes in the website they could claim that it is no longer your design, it is simply inspired by your design.
All that potential confusion goes away if it is work-for-hire; payment for work-for-hire is a matter of labor law, which has centuries of rock-solid precedent.
Ownership may be emotionally satisfying, but it is a weaker argument for getting paid.
I confess, you do have some good points. I still think work-for-hire and being an independent contractor for a website is a bit different, but then again, it also depends if you consider what you do a “product” or “service” (which is a debated topic itself).