What ownership rights does a customer have over their website.
IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) of a website is not quite as straightforward as you might imagine!
There are 2 main areas to consider:
Site Content
This is covered by copyright law. Copyright is automatic in the UK. Unlike some other forms of intellectual property right, you don’t have to apply for it and there’s no register of copyright holders. In practice, however, it can be difficult to enforce legally. It’s a good idea to mark your work with the international copyright symbol © followed by your name and the year of creation. We include this for you.
Its very easy for someone to copy the design of your website, and copy the content, including the images. In reality the biggest deterrent to someone copying your website is not the law, but Google. Google’s search engines will usually detect and not list (or list lower) duplicate (older) content.
If you use images on your website, you need to be sure you have the right to use them. Taking images from another website is not legal, or fair. Images that we supply are sourced from stock image retailers and typically includes the non-exclusive rights to use the image on your website or printed media, but not the right to re-sell it. If you require otherwise, that can be arranged
Site Code
If you pay to have a website developed, you will own any code that was specifically developed for you. That however leaves a lot of components of a functioning website that may be required to make it work, that you dont “own”. An example is the database software (typically MySQL) that may be used in connection with your site.
So for example if you use our site -builder tool, you will have not paid for code to be developed (which is why it is low-cost), so all you own is the site content.
Useful links
DTI advice on copyright
Advice on outsourced code
Complete guide to IP (UK govt)
