You,Own,Your,Web,Site,Design,a law Do You Own Your Web Site Design?
When you work with an attorney, you will have no problem reducing the risks associated with getting your case in front of a judge and jury, or other formal court, when you need to. However, every case is different. It is important to work wi Bankruptcy is a situation, wherein an individual is termed as unable to discharge all the debts. When a person or a company is not able to pay off its creditors, it has an obligation to file a bankruptcy suit. In fact, a bankruptcy suit is a
Your web site has been up for a few months and you aremaking money hand over foot. While surfing sites oneevening, you are shocked to find a competitor using your design. You find out your designer sold them thesame design. They must be breaking the law, right? Itall depends on whether you own the copyright to yourweb site design. Many site owners are shocked tofind out they do not. What is Copyright? Copyright is a method of protection for authors oforiginal works such as literature, computer programs,music, artistic pieces and photographic images. Theprotection provided by copyright arises under Title 17 of the United States Code. A copyright gives theowner the exclusive right to do or authorize othersto: reproduce, prepare derivative works, distributecopies, publicly display and generally use the material that carries the copyright in exchange forsomething, typically a royalty or fee. The copyrightowner often grants this use through a licenseagreement, but can sell it outright. Who Can Claim Copyright? Copyright protection is created IMMEDIATELY upon thecreation of a fixed form of the material in questionand granted to the person that created the material.For instance, I automatically own the copyright to this article upon completing it. I am not requiredto file for an official copyright with the US Copyright Office to prove that I am the owner of thecontent. However, if I want to sue a person for usingmy article without permission, I must first registerit. What If I Hire Someone To Create A Web Site For Me? If you hire a person or company to handle the designof your site, the complexities of copyright become amajor issue for you. Specifically, the issue of "workfor hire" is critical in determining whether you ownthe design. "Work for hire" refers to the relationship betweenyour business and the person creating your web site.If this person is an employee of your business andcreates the material within their scope of employment,then your business owns the copyright. However, whathappens when the designer is not an employee? In sucha situation, the following must occur for thecopyright to automatically transfer to you. The workmust be specially ordered or commissioned for use as: A contribution to a collective work, A part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work,A translation,A supplementary work, A compilation, An instructional text,A test, Answer material for a test, orAn atlas. It is my opinion that the design of a web site doesnot fall into any of the above categories. As a result, you do not own the copyright to the designand can do nothing about the fact that a competitoris using the design. Obviously, this is not theanswer that most site owners want to hear. So, whatcan you do to protect your business?When you hire an outside party to design, alter, amend or improve your site, you must have them signa written contract. The contract must include a clause clearly establishing that the copyright to thematerial produced is vested with you, not the designer. You should then file the contract withyour important documents as some designers "forget"that they assigned the copyright to you. Presentinga copy of the contract and noting that it allows forthe recovery of attorney's fees usually solves theproblem.The issue of copyright ownership of a web site oraspect of a site pops up often. Finding your designbeing used on another domain is bad enough, but itcan get worse. If you sell your business, the attorneyfor the party purchasing your business will always askabout the copyright of the site as part of the duediligence process. More than a few business deals havefallen apart when the lack of copyright ownership isdiscovered. Obtaining copyright at the outset of your business effort will avoid serious problems inthe future.
You,Own,Your,Web,Site,Design,a