Don't make this mistake.

I've been dealing recently with a few customers who have been encountering trouble with their previous web development/design companies in regard to ownership and copyright problems.

If you are signing a contract for web development, graphic design, logo design - anything where the project is undertaken by another person or business make sure that in the contract or terms that ownership is or will be assigned to you or your business once payment has been completed.

If you don't there will likely be trouble if and when you want to move.

For example - a business I'm currently trying to help have a contract that doesn't specifically mention anything related to copyright or intellectual property and now the dodgy design firm wants almost £500 for simply providing access to the web server because they claim it may provide the customer access to intellectual property. Even though she has fully paid for the website design.

Don't make this mistake, do a bit of due dilligence on the paperwork to protect yourself and your business.

You make an important point about ownership of intellectual property here, Andy.  In my field, another thing that some of my customers have done is sign contracts where they do not have ownership of their telephone numbers.  Along with email addresses and URLs, telephone numbers are one of the most precious assets a business can have.  Caveat emptor applies: if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.  What appear to be very low cost deals on phone lines and calls, can turn out to be very costly indeed.  Don't tie yourself into cheap long-term contracts for analogue and broadband lines that you can't easily get out of when you find that you need large capacity fibre trunks.

Malcolm 

Can definitely see this problem in comms, Malcolm. I used to work for Daisy selling wholesale broadband/telephony and I think the worst carrier was TalkTalk/Opal - their uber cheap pricing was only possible because of the ridiculous amounts they charge to disconnect you when you want to move. 

Of course they don't tell you that when you sign up!

So few people realise that even if someone has designed and built you a website, the IP automatically belongs to the creator without them needing to stipulate it in a contract.  The way it works (as I understand it) is that if I build something for you, I own the IP but it is essentially "licensed" to you to use exclusively for the purposes it was built.

Denying access to, or charging for FTP access potentially goes against that last part, but so many unscrupulous companies do it.

You'll likely find resistance to requests for complete ownership of the IP, because if I hand over full IP to you then technically you could set yourself up as a web design agency and resell the work I've done over and over again - but there are much more sensible ways to approach things than handcuffing clients to you and charging them the earth for reasonable requests.

Note I'm not an IP specialist, the above is just my understanding of things!

I definitely see where you're coming from - I made sure in our contracts it says that upon completion of payment for the project that they basically own the site - however they aren't permitted to resell our work.

That's basically there to stop the potential of another agency using us to design a project we think is direct and then sticking it on a template site and making loads of money off our work.

Of course we do whitelabel projects as well in which case that isn't relevant but you catch my drift.

Absolutely - it's not hard to make sure everyones interests are protected but this is so rarely the case and more often than not it's the client who suffers.

It's a short term strategy though because the second you've screwed over your client that relationship is ruined, so you're constantly chasing the next sucker - whereas just sticking to a rule of not being a knobber means you can nuture contiuously profitable relationships for years and years.

Well said Andy and comments from Mike (your understanding is correct unless the work is done by an employee and then the employer owns it automatically).  I see a lot of clients who don't think about the IP (both sides I hasten to add!) and then get into bitter copyright issues when it all goes wrong!

Thanks for the excellent advice, Andy. 

In my opinion it is a total shame on the industry really - it's totally unfair to the client to play these sorts of games. After all the website could be their soul source of income and even if it isn't that doesn't make the posturing any less damaging.

It's almost like holding them at ransome which is a terrible business practice. As Mimo said, it's so much more benefical to take care of the customer rather than screwing them - sure a customer might want to move, but if you handle it in a mature and fair way you still have a relationship and they or someone they refer could come back to you earning you ten times the amount of money, purely because you were fair and traded honestly.

In my contract it specifically states that the client owns, and can do whatever they require to, all code, graphics etc that have been created for the specific project once full and final payment has been made.
As far as I am concerned it's the best option for the client as they don't feel handcuffed into a contract/ escape clause etc.
Simply put - I like to keep everything transparent and simple.
Not once in my 15+ years have I had any problems with this.

Great to hear Lee.

Excellent advice.

For important IP, say, a company logo or brochure or photographs, you should also have a specific copyright assignment. Avoids disputes and invaluable when enforcing rights as evidence of ownership.

The way it works, is not strictly correct. If you design a logo for a website, you may be able to stop its use on an offline publication. If you design a brochure in English targeted at UK market, then you can prevent use in Australia or translation for Spanish market. In other words, what was the purpose for which it was created?

>Excellent from a client perspective. But what has been specifically created? You will have third party integrated software and coding routines that are integrated into websites for different clients. If you assign these, you may assign rights that you do not have or rights that are the tools of your trade.