[mwittman]

I came across an interesting statement online while googling RE today:

From entry titled "Ask Idealware: Integrating with Raiser's Edge" at Personal Democracy Forum – Technology Is Changing Politics :

Quote:

Technically, there are some specific issues when dealing with The Raiser's Edgeｮ (RE). You can develop a methodology based on standard RE imports, which are part of the front-end of the application. This approach lacks elegance, but it works and it is covered under Blackbaud technical support. Legally developing a fully-automated integration requires the purchase of the Blackbaud API. Writing directly to the back-end of the software without the API may violate the terms of your service agreement. If you do pay the $15,000 for the API, make sure that a good intellectual property attorney reviews the API contract (all software contracts actually), as it seems to indicate that Blackbaud retains ownership of all intellectual property created using the toolset.

Check out the source URL to read the question posed to which this was the response.

The question I'd like to put out there over the Blackbus PA system is: What are the merits of this statement regarding the interpretation of the ToS agreement for the RE API and the implied intellectual property encumbrances potential?

My shop does not currently use/contract the API, so it's not a bridge we've crossed yet. Others?