The information in this article is a brief summary for informational purposes only and is only applicable in the Province of Ontario. It is not meant to be legal advice. If you require information or advice as it relates to your individual circumstances you are advised to consult with the Law Office of Peter Cusimano or speak to your own lawyer. This article is intended for computer consulting and computer programming companies. In addition, anyone who retains the services of a computer consultant or computer programmer will also find this article of interest and can easily adapt the material to their perspective.
Programs never work initially and require constant revisions to work out the bugs.
Often clients cannot understand the difficulty in finding and fixing bugs in a computer system. If you do not adequately protect yourself, you may not get paid for your services. Even worse, you could be sued and held liable to pay for your client's damages which could include more than just the price of your services. You could easily find yourself defending a lawsuit for thousands or millions of dollars for loss of profits and loss of contracts of your client if they are unable to conduct business as they anticipated while the computer system is down. On the other hand, when the program is functional and of good quality, the ownership of the software often becomes a contentious issue between the parties.