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Home | Firm Profile | Legal Articles | Top 10 Tips | Links | Taxpage | Trademarkpage | Contact Us | VIDEO Profile BEWARE - YOU MAY NOT OWN YOUR WEB SITE
The Nature of Ownership Ownership issues with respect to a web site can be complex. Ownership rights arise or are created under the laws relating to intellectual property. Intellectual property deals with intangibles such as trade-marks and copyright. The laws relating to all of these areas can and do affect the web site. Copyright Copyright derives from the creation of an original work by a company or its employees. A copyright can also be obtained by purchase or license. If your web site contains material from various sources the issue of copyright becomes important. Is all content on a web site protected by copyright? If so who owns the copyright. If material is subject to a license is the license broad enough to permit the materials intended use on the site. Is the company protected from copyright infringement by licensors or suppliers. Can you use copy written material and modify it to create derivative works. If the site contains music or images, have rights been obtained? When you hire someone to create web site software for you, does your agreement specify that you acquire the rights to the software. If not, the contractor will own the rights and have the ability to sell or license same to a third party including a direct competitor. If the web site has been developed internally by employees, normally the company will own copyright. However, it is a good idea to ensure that employment agreements clearly specify that the employees have no rights to any intellectual property developed while employees. Trade-Mark & Domain Name Concerns Domain names are an area of increasing litigation. You should ensure that you have
trade-mark protection for your domain name. If you have arranged for the domain name
registration through your web host, ensure that your company has been put down as the
owner and that a company employee's name and phone number is given as the contact. If not
there can be problems in obtaining rights to the name in the future. It is also important
to have an agreement with employees to ensure that the company owns the trade-mark rights
and not the employee. When an employee leaves the company's employment, contact
information must be updated. You should also see if anyone has a domain name that may
infringe on any registered trade-marks which you own. Conversely you must also ensure that
your domain name does not infringe on another person's trade-mark.
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