Who owns the code?
misc
the site?
Can they stop me getting another company to maintain the site?
I have the problem that the company want me to sign a usage agreement before
they give me a copy of the site on CD.
It is not an ecommerce site and i am not interested in using their code.
Hywel
> If i pay a website design company to design a site, who owns the code for
> the site?
>
> Can they stop me getting another company to maintain the site?
Depends what was agreed before you contracted them to do the work. If
they use proprietary content management software, that they've written,
then they may well licence its use to you. So, if you wanted to leave,
they'd keep the code, and you'd have whatever you can see in your
browser.
--
Hywel
Journalist-North
"misc" <mi...@misc.com> wrote in message news:2nhn7t...@uni-berlin.de...
Just like any copyright problem it is best settled in the initial
contract... so what did your contract with them say when they built your web
site about further use of it beyond any development work [only] or any
initial term of use and maintenance agreement [after delivery]?
In any website there are two elements: the content and the design - the
content you supplied (images, text, logos, ect) may or may not represent, or
be represented by, any of the fundamental design elements (the code) that
allows it to display. You [may] have a copyright interest in the first but
the designers definitely do in the second instance.
The designers, on the other hand, may have used code that will work with any
included content and thus be recyclable to another client with different
supplied content... and they see their copyright interest in the "code" as
having enduring value to them.
Your website, any website, is a hybrid of the two elements. Unless you
contracted [a use agreement] otherwise when the initial development contract
was let they can't separately use your content BUT you can't separately use
their code OR use their code in conjunction with your content [the completed
web site].
If, as you say, you are not interested in using their code, but in fact the
existence of the web site itself incorporates that code and that is an
inseparable element from the ability to present the overall web site, if you
intend to make it live, you probably have no choice but to sign their usage
agreement.
You may have boxed yourself in here to: 1) Paying for the development work,
to date, but in refusing to agree terms of usage of their code not being
able to use anything they have developed - as that would most likely
constitute a copyright infringement of their copyright in the code elements
if you do so without their agreement [license] - and they are right to
refuse delivery absent such an agreement; or 2) having to start over with
another developer and re-designing it all over again - but running the risk,
then, of being sued by the first designer if the second develops a website
based on code nearly identical to theirs... and opening the potential of an
accusation of infringing the original design.
You also asked, and it is a separate issue completely: "Can they stop me
getting another company to maintain the site?" and the short answer is
probably yes. In order to do any maintenance on the site the third party
would have to have access to the original code as well as your content and
in doing so would necessarily make copies (however transient those copies
may be in computer terms) which constitutes a copyright infringement. You
can not "maintain" their work, in any practical terms, without infringing
their copyright (if they choose to object).
Journalist
Martin Davies
contract giving you copyright.
If you told them roughly what you want, then approved what they came up
with, then copyright could be with them (gets a bit murky then).
Overall though, depends on your contract with them.
Martin <><
Rusty Bullethole
>If i pay a website design company to design a site, who owns the code for
>the site?
>
>Can they stop me getting another company to maintain the site?
>
>I have the problem that the company want me to sign a usage agreement before
>they give me a copy of the site on CD.
Why don't you use one of the many "leech" programs and download a
complete copy of the site yourself.
Rusty
SteveR
That doesn't help if the site uses server-side scripts (Perl, JSP,
Python, ASP, etc.) to generate the HTML. In this case, you can only see
the output of the scripts, unless you have FTP access, in which case the
question of leech programs becomes moot.
--
SteveR
(throw away the dustbin, send to stever@... instead)