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Who’s the owner?
By admin | January 31, 2008
When a customer orders a website from a hosting service the issue that arises is who owns the intellectual property rights of the website. A customer would normally raise the point that if he didn’t own the rights to the website, he would be chained to the host. So the question arises what does a customer expect when he orders a website and what does the host agree to offer?
It is the custom-designed features of a website that make it popular with users and naturally the argument would tend to be in the customer’s favor. Thus such interest that the customer might have in the website must be protected. The contract that the customer enters into with the web developers on the face of it grants ownership of the customer’s website, but what is the extent of the customer’s right?
But the legal reality is that only on the basis of such an argument the customer cannot be granted the ownership of the website. Unless the customer bargained upfront for such ownership and paid a premium for it, he cannot be said to be the real or the rightful owner of the site.
But if you take care while entering into a contract you should still be able to guarantee that you still have the rights. Most contracts refer to a ‘customer’s website’ and talk about transferring it to the customer without actually defining what it is. What needs to be ascertained is whether site-enabling software is also included in this. So when you enter into a contract with a web developer it will jeopardize the ownership of your code and in turn your website unless your contract is framed correctly. If you are careful and smart though you can retain rights to your website as well as your software and that is the best possible scenario.
Topics: Choosing a Web Host, Uncategorized |
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