A Critical Legal Step For Every New Website

Millions of people have the proverbial light bulb go on each year and decide to start an internet business. This almost necessarily means that you have to open a website whether it be a behemoth or a one page sales letter. Whatever direction you go, it is important to realize there may be a legal step you need to take that, if not taken, can come back to haunt you.

The step in question deals with the ownership of the website design you are using. Let me be absolutely clear. If you design your own site and don’t use a template or a third party, you have absolutely no problems and can skip this article. If you aren’t doing your own work, read on.

The problem is copyright. Copyright law is a fickle mistress, but one that is very loyal to the creators of works. In the case of websites, this means that the copyright ownership is automatically vested in the person who creates the site design. Yes, this is true even if you are paying a third party to do the design or even if you buy a template design from some site as is often the case with WordPress blogs.

Why does this matter? There are usually two problems that arise. Let’s say your site starts becoming really popular. There is nothing to bar the designer from selling the site design to another party or licensing it to many other parties. Suddenly, you start seeing your site design all over the place and there isn’t anything you can do about it.

The second problem comes down the road. Let’s say your site is doing really well. In fact, it is blowing away the competition. One of your competitors realizes as much and approaches you with bags of cash and a desire to buy your site. You agree to an insanely high price, but there is a problem. You don’t own the site design, so you certainly can’t sell it. The deal falls through and the buyer goes to look for the designer to see if he or she can buy your design. Things have suddenly gone from tremendous to very bad.

So, what can you do about this problem? It depends on the timing. The best option it to include a clause in the design agreement that effectively transfers any copyright ownership the designer has to you. If the design is already done, you can approach them with a copyright transfer contract. Either option will transfer the incredibly valuable ownership of the site to you well before it becomes a practical problem.

Richard A. Chapo is with SanDiegoBusinessLawFirm.com - creating and negotiating copyright transfer contract agreements for clients.