Bill of the cloud rights

Despite the seeming ease of purchase of programs for the SaaS model, signing of the contracts on service with providers of the cloud systems requires not smaller care, than purchase of the traditional software, is emphasized in the report of analytical company Constellation Research.

The danger of a binding to the supplier in case of SaaS is even higher, than at normal licensing, analysts note. For example, even if clients retain control over data, change of provider all the same will be expensive and difficult action because of a difference in architecture, model of metadata and other factors.

Buyers of SaaS should demand from suppliers of individual responsibility for ensuring work with a binding to specific indicators, consider in Constellation. Buyers should be aware of all serious changes in release schedules of products (for one or two years forward), price models and the structure of personnel. Besides, suppliers should help upon transition of buyers for other platform — or providing necessary tools (for example, a temporary hosting and means of data migration), or allowing to purchase source codes of a system.

Article 1 (partially): Clients own the data

• Any producer (or the supplier) should not in the course of customer interaction of any plan to discuss the rights to any data loaded, created, generated, modified or any other, the rights to which the client has.
• Producers should provide initially the minimum accessibility to data of clients at a stage of development of solutions and services.
• Clients own the data that means that they are responsible that these data meet legislative arrangements and laws.
• As questions of compliance to regulatory regulations on use of data, security and respect for security are very important, it is necessary that the client defined a geographical location of own data. Otherwise, producers should provide to users all guarantees that their data will be stored according to all regulations and rules.

Article 2: Producers and Clients jointly own and manage levels of service in a system

• Producers own and also all should do to correspond to the level of service for each client separately. All necessary resources and the efforts made for achievement of due level of service in work with clients should be free for the client, i.e. not be included in the price of service.
• Clients, in turn answer for and own the level of the service provided to their own internal and external clients. When using solutions of producer for providing own services – responsibility of the client and level of such service should not depend on the producer entirely.
• In case of need integration of the systems of the producer and the client, producers should offer clients integration process monitoring opportunities. If the client has corporate standards on integration of information systems, the producer should conform to these standards.
• Under no circumstances producers should not close accounts of clients for political expressions, the incorrect speech, religious comments if it does not contradict specific legislative arrangements, is not hatred expression, etc.

Article 3: Producers own the interfaces

• Producers are not obliged to provide standard interfaces or interfaces with the open code if the return is not stated in customer agreements. Producers have rights to interfaces. If the producer does not find it possible to give to the client opportunities for completion of the interface in a usual programming language, the client can purchase at the producer or third-party developers of service in completion of interfaces according to own requirements.
• The client, however, has rights to use the purchased service in own purposes and also to expand its opportunities, to replicate and improve. This point does not exempt clients from liability of patent law and the intellectual property right.

The stated above three articles – a basis of bases for clients and producers "in a cloud". You can study their complete text in open access to the Internet. Of course, this bill is not the finished legal document, and especially official. Its articles can change and extend at any time, as well as the bill can be supplemented with new articles. It is attempt to formalize "property right" in a cloud somehow to standardize this freedom-loving knowledge domain and technologies.

Source: SaaS World