In book contracts, the Author's Guild recommends that writers agree to
produce work that is of a quality commensurate with that throughout the
industry, so there's no question over whether the work an author does is of
the quality that the publisher wants. The means for determining this
probably involve arbitration, but we are considering using language of this
sort (after consulting with our copyright and contract lawyer, of course!)
in our agreement. So that a client can expect from us Internet information
services developed to a level exceeding the minimum professional standards
in the industry as defined by the current state of Web development.
Otherwise, the client may have extreme expectations that can't be met. But
if the site is crummy, we've failed to fulfill the contract. Of course,
we'd never do a crummy site, but you need a starting point for this kind of
language.
There are now several lawyers involved with these issues on the list, and
I'd appreciate any off-the-cuff, nonbinding, semi-unofficial ideas about
this from them, as well as the same kind of ideas from the non-legal types.
--
Glenn Fleishman * Point of Presence Company, Seattle, WA <http://www.popco.com>
"Trend Watch" columnist, Adobe Magazine
Moderator, Internet marketing mailing list (finger inet@wolfe.popco.com)
For PGP key, finger pgp@wolfe.popco.com