[LoBelly]

I work in software.

To me, the matter of ownership of the tune and whether or not the tune can be locked looks a lot like a licensing issue.

The last licensing contract I did was over 30 (A4) pages - so I have an appreciation that there are many different aspects to the 'ownership' and ability to modify software (a tune).

This last contract, as with most of the previous ones I've done very specifically sets out that the ownership of the IP (in all sorts of forms) resides with the Vendor.

The reason this is so specifically laid out is that it is contrary to the default rule that would be applied by the courts, in the absence of such an agreement ( or so I'm told by some very highly paid IP lawyers) i.e that the ownership of the IP (tune) would reside with the person who paid for it, the Customer. (again noting that this is a vast generalisation)

Like Plums & Doubledip I generally want to protect my(or the company's) IP and to do so requires attention and careful management. The volume of forum traffic dedicated to this indicates that this aspect was not well managed at all.

Whether it was a good tune in terms of performance for a mail order tune or reasonably priced is way besides the point - performance, effort and feelings of ownership often cloud peoples understanding of rights and actual ownership.

I have read most of the posts about this on LS1.com.au (and here) and think that if I were in Boxhead's shoes I'd feel that I had some fairly legitimate compliants, particularly after reading the responses from Chipmaster.

I didn't see anywhere that Chipmaster was refusing to refund you Boxhead (did I miss that?) My assumption would be that if he's wiping the tune he's also refunding at the same time - no harm/no foul/each side is out the cost of some shipping and maybe learned a lesson.

No?

LoBelly