PlusStuff

Who owns your site?

A long term dirty trick of the web design world lies in ownership, you may have paid out for a website to be built from your photos, logo and words, but that doesn’t mean you own it, and that can create big problems if you want to move your site to a cheaper host or fall out with your designer.

Domain names

Domains are the really valuable part of your site, once you get a domain established people remember it and if you somehow lose that address you have to start all over again promoting your website to people. If you get a good name and lose it, you’ll probably never find another one as good either.

Whoever buys the domain name from the registrar is automatically listed as the owner and you have to actually request a change in name. Many web designers don’t request the change and end up in a powerful position owning all their client’s domain names, make sure the terms of agreement stipulate that you will own the domain name completely.

Web design

Creating a website automatically makes the designer the copyright owner in most Western legal systems, irrelevant of what it’s about or what’s in it; they created it so it is theirs, they have to relinquish that right and pass it over to you in their terms of business and by making it clear on the website itself that it is © to you.

This is often a problem if you find a better web hosting package elsewhere, prices can vary a great deal, but if you don’t have a copy of your website and your web designer is still the legal owner of it, they don’t have to hand it over to you and if they take it down off the Net completely you’re left with nothing but a long legal case to get it back. Make sure your designer marks the site as yours, stipulates in their terms that you are the copyright owner, and always make sure they give you a CD with the files for the website on it.

Like almost anything in business, the small print of the terms and conditions is really important, and many small web design companies don’t even have them, this doesn’t automatically mean they’re bad, you could request a simple contract be drawn up confirming your ownership of the website and domain name, but exercise caution in dealing with a company that doesn’t have all the right documents and remember you only ever get what you pay for!

Related articles

• 3 things to do if your domain is hijacked (venturebeat.com)

Popularity: 1% [?]

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

No comments yet.

Leave a comment