>Remember that the flip side of a good contract is managing who is liable if a problem occurs in the future. We probably spent more time in umbrell contracts and underlying work orders and title transfer documents to assure BOTH parties in the transaction clearly understand when something is done and accepted as deliveried. Since copyright in the software world is further clouded by what is or is not a derivitive work (how many popup calendars are truely original works and completely allowed in a commercial product) and if you really want a head spinner - how about the icons, bmps and orher images included in just about everyones work -- I once had a close friend in the music/photo business explain copyright law in that space and BLAAAAAAAA.
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>A good basic contract where you are a independent contractor not employee, not 'work for hire', retain all rights to everything thought of during the project even if in a bar unless explicitly granted, responsible for nada after delivery and customer acceptance (get it in writting) is a good start. This is not to say you leave customers floundering but it is amazing how much additional thought goes into customer testing if they cannot use the application in production (if they do it's defacto acceptance - put that in the contract) until a formal acceptance of the work is executed -- everyone wins and memories do not become short about verbal committments.

Thanks for those additional feecbacks.