I have a potential hosting client that wishes to have me host and maintain his website. He claims he paid for the design and therefore owns the site but on the bottom of every page it has a copyright statement that worries me:
Company logo
Web Site Design and Hosting
Phone: 408-xxx-xxxx
webmaster@xxxxx.com
Copyright 2005 - 2009
All Rights Reserved
Updated 3/22/07

How does this usually work? When someone pays for a site design and hosting, does the client actually own the design or does the design/hosting company? My main concern is that I would be making changes in the site for the client and of course I would remove the old copyright info.

Thanks in advance for any input.

I'd say (and I'm not a lawyer) that when a customer pays for a site design, it falls under the category of a work for hire - which means the customer owns it.

When would this not be the case? If the customer buys a template, but not exclusively, the template owner owns it. The customer has only bought a license to use the template.

If you're concerned, have your customer sign a "hold harmless" provision - I think that's the name for it - where they agree to cover you in the event of a third-party suit over intellectual property.

Any legal experts on the board, please correct any mistakes above.

Thanks for your input THT. I'm quite sure it's not a template. I realize no one on here is giving legal advice. I'm just looking for people's experiences and opinions, then I'll go from there.

Thanks again for responding.

I spoke to my attorney today about a similar thing for me. Heres the deal. Unless the designer/coder is signed as a legal independent contractor or employee, technically the site is still his. Check out the facebook litigation.

I spoke to my attorney today about a similar thing for me. Heres the deal. Unless the designer/coder is signed as a legal independent contractor or employee, technically the site is still his. Check out the facebook litigation.



Thanks RS,
Pardon my ignorance but are you saying that if the designer, in this case a company, is an independent contractor (rather than???) or employee of the contractor/company then the site is still his? Whos? The client or the company? I'm sorry but I'm totally confused now.:confused:

I googled the facebook litigation but I don't see the similarity to my situation.

Can you give me some more details in his copyright statement? Maybe i miss read your post.

To make my last post clearer (hopefully):
If its a company/person and you don't have a legal contract with that company/person stating that the work they do for you is infact yours and not theres. legally the site is still theres.

Thanks for the clarification RS, I get it now. It's not good news for my client but hopefully we can get them to release it.

probably 95% of web design deals don't have written contracts so I wouldn't worry a ton about it. Unless his site starts making millions of $$ and the designer wants to claim it as his lol. you should be fine though aslong as he did infact pay for it the design company shouldnt have any issue.

probably 95% of web design deals don't have written contracts so I wouldn't worry a ton about it. Unless his site starts making millions of $$ and the designer wants to claim it as his lol. you should be fine though aslong as he did infact pay for it the design company shouldnt have any issue.

Thanks RS|John,

It's a simple Clear Lake California resort website with only a PR2 so probably no worries.:)

yeah you should be fine

Hey I have a copyright question. I supply over a 200 links to sites related to my cause(a medical condition) and we have them placed in one of our pages named "information resources". Can anyone see a potential copyright problem with this? We have two copyright statments in our TOS pertaining to our own copyright and those of links sites.

I don't see a problem with this but I'm not a lawyer. I know my site drives alot of hits to these linked sites but I can never be to cautious in these days of high litigation.

Thanks for any info. Much appreciate it.

You mean you have links to external sites and are concerned that those sites will sue you? Hard to imagine, though in fact I seem to recall that someone did try to sue for something like that a few years ago, and lost.

Thank you for your response. This is what I thought as isn't the internet all about linking? LOL Anyway, well if someone has a problem with me linking to their site, page, articles or whatever, then I'll gladly remove it. If they don't want the free traffic.. oh well.