Michael;

A few thoughts:

1. See a software attorney if you are truly concerned about “who owns the data”.
A. Having run into this before see if there is a document that states “who owns the tables/data”.

2. If there are no legal issues or concerns on your part copy the existing tables.
A. Normalize if required and port over the data – this can take some time.
1. Normalization may or may not be required. That truly depends upon your needs.
B. Rename existing fields to fit your own conventions and dispose of keywords.
C. Index as required.

I use tools such as Data Junction for data conversion (which you do not have to worry about), xCase and a few others to handle my data needs. For a project with 100 tables it is nice to have a visual representation of what you are working with.

Tom




>A potential client want to rewrite an existing application for many reasons but mostly due to poor service, bugs galore, etc from their existing programmer. They're suggesting I use the existing tables so as not to lose historical data. Without going into the logic for me to use their tables, does this violate copyright? The company does not own the code and the programmer won't give/sell it to them. As I see it, the code is the contractors but the tables are 100% the company's. But on the other hand, the contractor "wrote" the tables so it then is his "code". Please set me straight here.
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>This is not the first time I've encountered this problem so I guess it must happen around the world. ( The tables are NOT normalised, key words are used for field names, etc so I would be very happy for this to all go away as a copyright issue )
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>Thanks