Owning the rights to your website

“Do I own the rights to my website after the project is complete?”

Web design and development companies hear this question a lot. Let’s walk through what you do not own and what you really should own after your website project is complete.

What Does This Entail?

Let’s say you started this project from scratch. You either had nothing online or had something that you absolutely hated and wanted a complete do over. There are different components involved in a web design and development project, all of which have different legal owners.

The Server — You DO NOT Own This.
The server that your website resides on is more than likely not purchased by you and therefore you do not own the server. You are probably paying a monthly or annual fee for the hosting of your website. I like to say that hosting is like renting an apartment in a building. Your website resides in a portion (a two-bedroom apartment) of a server (the 20 unit building) that someone else (the landlord) owns.

The Content Management System (CMS) — You DO NOT Own This.
This is assuming your website is built on a CMS. Depending on the type of CMS that is used to build your site will often have a huge impact on whether or not you OWN the rights to your site. If your site is built on an Open Source platform (such as Drupal or Wordpress), you should own the rights to the site after you have paid in full for the services to develop the site. If your site is built on a proprietary system (such as Sitecore or SharePoint) you will likely incur licensing fees. Regardless of the type of CMS, you do not own the CMS, unless of course you are the original author/creator of the CMS.

The Visual Design — You SHOULD Own This.
This is an area that you should insure in your negotiations with your designer that you own the rights to the design once paid in full. This allows you the flexibility to keep the design and apply it to a new CMS if necessary.

The Photos/Images & Site Content— You MIGHT Own This.
As long as the information is original to you, then yes you own the rights to the content and images on the site. If you wrote the content or took the pictures, then you own them. In the event you have purchased photography off a site such as istockphoto.com, you will need to confirm the rights of usage associated with the specific image purchased. Some images are listed as Royalty-Free — meaning once you’ve purchased them, you can use them for whatever purposes you want within their acceptable guidelines. Other images may have usage limitations, such as for ‘editorial use only’. Make sure to confirm the details of your image usage to avoid any copyright infringement issues. This should not have to be stated: NEVER STEAL IMAGE OR COPY WITHOUT FIRST SEEKING PERMISSION. When you do use another persons image or copy — make sure to give credit to the original source.

Domain Name — You DO NOT Own This.
The domain name is often misunderstood as being owned by the person who paid for it. The truth is that no one owns a domain name. Such as how you ‘RENT’ server space for your website, you are paying for the rights to use the domain name for a set time-frame (1 — 10 years can be purchased at a time). Think about your phone number, you do not own a phone number. The domain name has three important parts upon registration. The most important part is the Registrant — the person who has the rights to use the name. This should not be the web company you are working with — rather this should be YOUR legal name. The Technical Contact and Administrative Contact can and usually will be your web developers information.

What Are My Options?

Any good web design and development provider should give you the option to own the rights to make changes on your website once the creation process is complete. Your web provider will most likely host the website and also have access to making necessary security updates but be sure that they are going to take the time to set you up with the tools and the knowledge to to do so through the CMS (i.e. Drupal, WordPress, Joomla) on which your site was built. While you don’t own the CMS itself, you own the right to login to the CMS and make visual and content changes on your particular website.

Most important takeaway here is to review the terms in your agreement regarding ownership over the site files, content and images of the site. If your site is being developed on an open source CMS, it should be easy for your developer to package up the entire site files and deliver to you upon completion.

Have any more questions regarding ownership on the web? Comment below or connect with us if you have any inquiries.

This post is part of a series called ‘Top questions to ask when hiring a web developer.’