Ask HN: Shutting Down a Website in a Contract Dispute
I have dealt with my fair share of strange and demanding clients as a consultant.  I still have 2 on-going saga&#x27;s I am dealing with after a year of my last company being sold.<p>Copyright can be more tricky then you think. IANAL of course, but unless stated otherwise my understanding is you as the creator own the copyright to the works, until you transfer it in written form to the client.  This is unless you have a contract that states different.  Also, this get&#x27;s interesting because it can also change potentially how the IRS sees the work product and who should pay taxes on your fees etc.  Work for hire vs Employee issues etc.<p>For the future, never leave something unstated, always clearly state it in plain english and in writing.  Leave no chance of gray area or undefined ownership or payment terms.  Ambiguity leads to nothing but trouble.<p>For the current situation, it is possible that they have a case against you for tortuous interference (or something else) if by taking down the site you affected client&#x27;s which pay for the service or have a service level expectation to the company.  Essentially, that is saying if you interfered with the relationship of their clients whom have a service agreement with them then you could possibly be held liable for damages and&#x2F;or real losses.<p>Again, IANAL and you should get one to help answer some questions cause I think you are on shaky ground here.  In the end, never ever shut down or remove software unless you have spoken with an attorney first, as you can be seen as damaging a business.  It may sound shitty, but your real course of action would have been to sue them for a lack of payment and maybe seek an injunction against their using any software which they haven&#x27;t paid for, but by removing things, you may have made yourself liable for damages and given them a case against you.  Get an attorney to talk to you, won&#x27;t cost much to get some feedback.  Likely if they haven&#x27;t sued yet, they feel they are on shaky ground for some reason, so you can still probably sort this out and protect yourself.