Who owns the copyright to web sites?

ve

This is something I'm curious about. Earlier this evening I was chatting to a professional photographer and he told me that when he is hired to take photos for a wedding, event, etc, that he retains the negatives of the images and that he is the exclusive copyright holder of the images. He can then re-use those images to promote his own portfolio, or whatever, if he so chooses, without prior written permission from the subjects of those photos (in the case of subject = people). I would have thought if I hired someone to take photos, then those images were mine, but I was absolutely wrong?

So when I hire someone to develop a web site, is the web site mine (source code, graphics, etc) or is the copyright still the designer/developers?

What is the legality I suppose behind all of this. I have noticed down the bottom of many web pages I'm sure...."copyright business (x)", where business (x) is simply a client of web design agency. I understand that the client in that case would perhaps own the content information, but the actual site that presents that information (i.e. the result of work carried out by the web design agency), who ultimately owns the copyright there.

Does anyone know the facts?

leninbenjamin

*no expert here...

but surely it would be under the terms of whatever contract you sign with your employers?

Goodshape

I'm no expert either... but...

The code that makes up the mechanics of the website, I'd imagine, remains the copyright of the web developer (unless some other agreement has been made). The logo, branding, 'identity' and content would belong to whomever commissioned the website.

If you think about it, a web developer specialising in property websites wouldn't be expected to come up with brand new code for each and every property client.

Of course larger web based business may well hire in-house developers, in which case I'm sure they retain all copyright.

CoNfOuNd

It's all down to the contract between the web developer and the client.

I think the normal procedure would be that when the website is completed and all payments are made by the client, then the client has full ownership of the website.

I think the same principle would apply with photographers. However, both website designers and photographers probably have a clause in the contract that they can re-use the work for other clients or for their portfolio under certain circumstances.

tricky D

There's a distinction between the product and the source materials. By default, copyright of the product is owned by the creator which is then licensed for use by the client. The copyright of the source files/graphics/code is retained by the creator, often to ensure repeat work, for the portfolio or to avoid duplication of work (e.g. why bother to recreate a similar page layout from scratch for a different client when you can retreat and rebrand an existing one). Copyright on 'stuff' developed in-house is owned by the employer unless the developer/coder etc. is specifically hired in on a freelance basis. Variations on this can be specified in contract. Eg. once got rebranded by an external design house, but being a large company with our own graphics dept, we bought the rights to the source stuff and paid quite a bit more than the usual identity design fee, as expected. These matters should all be clarified very early on and put in a contract before work starts for everyone's protection.

DJB

Here's a snippet from my standard contract that may explain it (but every developer is different)...

18. Unless otherwise agreed in writing by DAVID BEHAN, the copyright and all other rights relating to any software provided to the Customer by or on behalf of DAVID BEHAN pursuant to this Agreement (the "Intellectual Property") will remain the property of DAVID BEHAN or where applicable its licensors.

19. Upon payment in full for the Services provided by or on behalf of DAVID BEHAN pursuant to this Agreement, DAVID BEHAN grants the Customer a nonexclusive and nontransferable perpetual license to use the Intellectual Property for the Customer's own business purposes, and in the case of the third party software, will obtain a sublicense in favor of the Customer in similar terms.

20. DAVID BEHAN warrants to the Customer that to the best of its knowledge, it has the right to grant the licenses referred to in this Agreement, and the use by the Customer of any software provided by DAVID BEHAN will not infringe the rights of any third party.

21. DAVID BEHAN also grants the Customer the right to copy the Intellectual Property for the purposes of staff and subcontractor education and system backups. However, the Customer must not copy any of the Intellectual Property for any other purposes.

22. The Customer must not decompile, disassemble, decrypt, extract or otherwise reverse engineer any part of any software that is provided to the Customer by DAVID BEHAN without DAVID BEHAN's prior written consent.

23. The Customer must hold any software (in source and/or in object code) and other materials provided to the Customer by DAVID BEHAN confidential. The Customer must not disclose any of those materials to any third party without DAVID BEHAN's prior written consent. The Customer must also take all reasonable steps within its power to protect the Intellectual Property of DAVID BEHAN.

I think that is self explanatory! However, you may get customers (mainly larger companies) that want to retain the intellectual property rights... in that case, the price of such projects can be much higher, depending on the project, that is!

Rgds, Dave

ve

Thank you very much, cleared that up nicely.

One new question though. As a freelance web designer/developer or web design agency, did you employ a solicitor to draft your legal terms or did you do it yourself. I'm almost positive that in the case of terms of service provided, you would have had your solicitor draft that document on your behalf. Is that the case?

Also something else on the legal side of things is that if someone develops a web site, and there is a security vulnerability in a web application component delivered and this is later exploited by 3rd parties, what protection (if any) does the service provider (in this case the freelance web designer/developer or web design agency) have against being sued?

For the record: I am not providing this service myself, but I do have a colleague who is considering it.

I was thinking about this recently, and discussing it a few people here in my office. Few seem to know the actual facts and so far you and others here are the closest I've found that knows the business.

I think this knowledge is valuable to both service providers and customers of said services.