You do NOT own the design on your site...!

[Darren B]

All freelancers that do not work for your company according to the law own the copyright even if you have paid for the work to be done, they need to sign the copyright over to you. So just wondering how many design firms actually do this and whether as a business you do this?

[JT]

All freelancers that do not work for your company according to the law own the copyright even if you have paid for the work to be done, they need to sign the copyright over to you. So just wondering how many design firms actually do this and whether as a business you do this?

I wonder how many adult design sites have ever ended up in court due to the designer owning the copyright of the design?

[Joe A]

You may be wrong...

If you are commissioned to do a project then the person paying may very well own the copyright.

I was in "diary of a porn virgin" and I wanted some out takes from Betty tv who were commissioned by Ch 4 to produce the programme.. Guess what.. I have to ask Ch 4 for them :)

[Darren B]

Checked it, and I am right... Just commisioning is not enough... :)

[JT]

Before I did webmastering I was a deigner for print. The customer always owned the finished artwork but never owned the working documents.

[Darren B]

Before I did webmastering I was a deigner for print. The customer always owned the finished artwork but never owned the working documents.

They wouldn't therfore own the copyright unless you signed it over to them

[Darren B]

The freelancer owns the copyright to all his/her work unless the copyright to the work is "assigned" to someone else by written agreement.


http://www.writers.ca/copyright_basics.htm


Quick link found.

[JT]

They wouldn't therfore own the copyright unless you signed it over to them

You know, Im not too hot on copyright of designs :) You could be right. But Im not sure what owning the copyright of a design you have done will benefit you, especially as the designer wouldnt own the copyright of the content of the site, which woulkd still belong to the site owner who supplied the content to be used :drink:

[Joe A]

That wasn't UK copyright law...

I had to prove to someone recently that a photographer own the copyright to all images he shoots in the UK and I came across this... I don't have the head to read it all.. Have a look.. You may still be right...

http://www.epuk.org/resources/abcd/majorpoints.html

[dvtimes]

The way I believe it works it that the designer owns the design unless otherwise contracted. By this the website owner has a designed site, which he owns, but he could not simply copy it and re-sell it.

However he/she could sell the site and website design.

Its a bit like, buying a painting. You own the painting. You can sell the painting, but not copy is and re-sell it.

However if the designer works for you, then its your businesses property. I.e., if I worked for Microsoft, and designed windows xp, I could not walk away from Microsoft and sell it myself. Its property of Microsoft.

Unless a webmaster is planning on making copies of the site and selling them on, in truth I am not sure that this would be much concern to the webmaster.

But it is an interesting thought.

[AndyMN]

eitherway if you get some work done make sure you get it signed over to you, just in case :)