Your website is yours, and that is the way it should be!

Over our years working in the industry we’ve often been perplexed when people come to us saying they’ve spoken to other suppliers and they’ve been told that they won’t actually own their website once it has been built. Well our advice to you…don’t use them then!

Your brand, your copyright

When you have a website built it is because you wish to have a key piece of marketing material for your brand. Your website is the first experience of your business and brand that many people will have, so not only does it need to be a great experience but it also needs to be quintessentially yours. As we said in our article about why design is important, making sure your website is as good as it can be is a very important consideration in picking a supplier, but also making sure that you own your site and everything about it is just as important. After all, the only reason that website is going to exist is because you and your business require it. And if it represents your business and is a part of your brand then it should also be your copyright. You own your business, your brand is a part of your business and your website is part of your brand.

But copyright law is a tricky thing, so you should beware that some unscrupulous suppliers will exploit the fact that they created it for you as an excuse to claim the intellectual property rights to it and effectively hold you to ransom!

What can you do?

Because copyright law can often be open to interpretation, it is important to make sure that any contract you agree to with a website supplier clearly states that you, as the commissioner, own the intellectual property rights to the final product. At Idio, our opinion is that this is just common sense and the way it should be. All our contracts state this. But it is logical anyway and no supplier should be able to tell you otherwise;

• The only reason the website exists is because your business required it
• The brand is your business brand, not your suppliers
• As the commissioner of the project you have prompted the work and paid for it
• The only reason you are using them is because you do not have the skills yourself

In a right minded world, all of the above should be enough to establish that you own the copyright. Unfortunately though that is not the case and without a contract, as the actual producers of the work, your supplier has a right to claim the copyright.

Why do they do this?

In short, we suspect it is because they wish to handcuff you to their service. Without the copyright you don’t have the right to just take your website elsewhere without agreeing terms with them (which will usually involve a large payment as well). Let’s be honest, this is just immoral and often will be the way they ensure against customers leaving due to poor service!

At Idio we’d rather make sure we keep your business by providing you with a good service. We enjoy an excellent reputation for gold standard service because that is what we have built our business around. And that is also why we would never claim the copyright to any work we do for you.

All projects we produce assign the intellectual property to our clients, and if in the future if you decide you need to move it somewhere else or want to use it with another part of your brand, you have the flexibility to do that.

Our advice – don’t settle for a supplier who offers you anything less than this!