Do you own your system? Take it back now

Make sure you know what your getting involved in before you sign the contract

Ownership of your new AV system, content and code have always been a very grey area. So grey that the integrator and the client can end up in a court battle. The integrator argument is they created the code, so therefore they own it. The integrator would have a footprint where they can copy, paste and tweak for each project. The Client would have the argument of; they purchased the systems so hand all it over.

It’s like buying a MacBook, but only being able to repair it at the Apple Store, which most people do (unless you're like me and I'm guessing a few of you're nodding at the moment). This does create clarity and trustworthiness. If you are happy to do so then its a good option. However, this is very different as all integrator are not

Apple. There are many different forms of integrator, some trustworthy and some not so trustworthy, they are humans after all.

As none of us are fortune tellers, we will never know the situation of the AV integrator future. Therefore it is essential in my opinion to get your hands on the code, so you can make future changes and you won't be held to ransom. If you end up in a situation where the integrator will not release the code then you can not reverse engineer most AV system codes. Which mean you are stuck if you would like to add AV zones or tweak it here or there.

Recently I was inspecting a job and I asked a question to one of the integrator team; “who wrote the code.” The response was; “I can't remember the chap’s name, but he was a Russian guy who lives in London.” My response to this was; “ if something happens to him, or he goes missing, then what will we do?”. The answer is, re-write the code from scratch…..

With mutual respect for both the client and the integrator, there can be a common ground; where a licensing agreement would be made. This allows the client to own the code, but also pay an additional per-device fee. The time invested by the integrator, into designing and engineering to make the footprint. The development costs would be paid back to them through a licensing model. The integrator may also want to introduce into the contract copyright of the system so the end user cannot copy and paste it to their next yacht or home.

There may also be a statement in the contract where; if the integrator goes out of business then the code will be released to the client.

This is a taboo subject which must be clearly stated in the contract before you begin to pull a cable. The Yotstore would always suggest a good conversation between with the integrator and your team to should iron out; what you will receive at the end of the project.

You should find yourself an integrator who is totally open and does not work with anyone who won't hand over the code. The meaning of interaction between integrator and crew is totally transparent. However, it is argued that new technologies have positive effects, by allowing the democratization of the AV/IT Systems while we advertise and promote a strong bond between the crew and integrator. That being said we like our client/ crew to be able to add buttons, change icons, background images and scenes. Thus looking for other option where you might not be so tied in.

Still, high-end AV Systems tend to be written code still. This means there isn't much flexibility for the end user. They would need to ask the integrator to babysit and jump on TeamViewer to make adjustments for adding buttons, change icons, background images and scenes. That being said there is also a limit of what is kept in a safe file as none of us wants a few wrong tweaks being done by someone to bring the entire system down. We all know a lot of coding errors are down to human error. So there's being flexible rather than writing loads of code