Who owns a website?

[boatillo]

Have my answer, thanks zealous forum people!

 

[yinan]

Your company does.

 

[Queasy]

The company you work for owns it.

But go ahead and take it down. You can then begin filling out the "Have you ever been convicted of a felony" portion of applications.

 

[glenn beck]

company, don't be a dick, just leave...

 

[SpunkyJones]

Its their website, they paid you to make it. I'm not sure how you do not see this as being part of "other duties as assigned". I've always pretty much done whatever the boss asks me, short of cleaning the urinals in the mens room.

 

[Injury]

Were you on the clock when you built this website? Did any of the costs of the website come from your personal funds?


Maybe before you try and get a new job you should work on being more mature.

 

[mundane]

What is the exact title of your position? (Multimedia Technician)? You might be able to push back on the work (before engaging in the task), but the results are most certainly property of the company.

edit: And even more than never doing something such as what you're asking about, never discuss it a location where people have enough information to identify you. I believe Loki isn't here any more, but it still places you in a tenuous legal position if something were to happen, even if you didn't cause it.

 

[Turkish]

You and I both know he does!

 

[boatillo]

So any work anyone does at their job, whether related to their job or not, is always 100% owned by their employer? I find that hard to believe. I know when a business hires an independent web designer, unless that person/company transfers all copyright ownership to the business that hired them then any web design done by them is owned by them. Why then does it belong to the company when they simply asked an in-house person to design a website (at pay unrelated to web design work, basically free) and never did a written copyright release?

EDIT: Actually some of the costs were from my personally owned software. I used my personal copy of Adobe CS3 (Photoshop + a little Dreamweaver) in the creation of the website, as well as my personal camera for all image captures.

 

[Injury]

What you clearly don't understand is that if a company is paying you for your time, all work done during that time is their property. They paid for it.

Copyright has NO bearing on the situation and if you are working on THEIR dime, it doesn't matter what you were hired for THEY are the only ones that can LEGALLY claim copyright on it.

Working on my personal website at work could make my company lay copyright claim to any content produced on their dime.

edit: If you used your personal effects, you should have brought that up with them beforehand and asked them to compensate you for their usage or purchase the tools for you to do the job with.

 

[aphex]

#1. Taking the website down with you is a crime. They own it, not you.
#2. Discussing such matters on a public forum is NEVER a smart thing to do, as mundane said above.
#3. "But not at risk of loosing job" - The word you're looking for is 'losing'
#4. Read both #1 and #2 again, they are important.

 

[DeviousTrap]

Originally posted by: boatillo
So any work anyone does at their job, whether related to their job or not, is always 100% owned by their employer? I find that hard to believe. I know when a business hires an independent web designer, unless that person/company transfers all copyright ownership to the business that hired them then any web design done by them is owned by them. Why then does it belong to the company when they simply asked an in-house person to design a website (at pay unrelated to web design work, basically free) and never did a written copyright release?

You can't be serious, can you? They're paying you to sit on your ass for 8 hours a day. Nobody gives a fuck what your job title is or your original job requirements. As long as you're sitting there, you are to do whatever your employer wants you to do, plain and simple. And, everything that you do there during those 8 hours is automatically property of the employer as they're paying you to do it. Don't believe me? Read your employee handbook/rules/regulations (or whatever they call it) about the rules of who retains property rights, I'm sure it's mentioned.

And nobody has a website designed for them without also purchasing all copyright laws. There may be agreements where the web designer retains the right to have their name appear at the bottom of the page, but under no condition would the designer have any rights to the website; it's simple work for hire.

 

[OdiN]

Originally posted by: boatillo
So any work anyone does at their job, whether related to their job or not, is always 100% owned by their employer? I find that hard to believe. I know when a business hires an independent web designer, unless that person/company transfers all copyright ownership to the business that hired them then any web design done by them is owned by them. Why then does it belong to the company when they simply asked an in-house person to design a website (at pay unrelated to web design work, basically free) and never did a written copyright release?

EDIT: Actually some of the costs were from my personally owned software. I used my personal copy of Adobe CS3 (Photoshop + a little Dreamweaver) in the creation of the website, as well as my personal camera for all image captures.

You work for them. Any work you do while working for them they own.

External companies are different.

If you willfully damage any of their systems, they can hold you legally responsible.

Anything you do at work is related to your job, whether you say it is or not. If your company tells you to do something - it's your job. You can certainly take it up with your manager, but if they tell you to do it, then it's your job. Doesn't matter if it isn't in your job description specifically. If you don't want to do it, you can quit or they can fire you for not doing it.

It doesn't matter that you used personal software for it (which you shouldn't have done in the first place) - you were on their time on their clock.

It simply comes down to the fact that they own it, you don't.

 

[Injury]

I also have $2 on his version of CS3 being pirated to begin with.

 

[boatillo]

Geez you people sure are ridiculously vicious! You remember that time when you didn't know the answer to something, so you asked someone else who might know? Wow, yea advice! Let's see....no copyright lawyer sitting beside me, don't know one and don't want to pay one, who else might know....oh ya! Possibly experienced individuals who are completely disconnected from the situation!

Thanks for the advice. Next time you might want to remember that everyone doesn't know everything like you do.

 

[OdiN]

Originally posted by: DeviousTrap

Originally posted by: boatillo
So any work anyone does at their job, whether related to their job or not, is always 100% owned by their employer? I find that hard to believe. I know when a business hires an independent web designer, unless that person/company transfers all copyright ownership to the business that hired them then any web design done by them is owned by them. Why then does it belong to the company when they simply asked an in-house person to design a website (at pay unrelated to web design work, basically free) and never did a written copyright release?

You can't be serious, can you? They're paying you to sit on your ass for 8 hours a day. Nobody gives a fuck what your job title is or your original job requirements. As long as you're sitting there, you are to do whatever your employer wants you to do, plain and simple. And, everything that you do there during those 8 hours is automatically property of the employer as they're paying you to do it. Don't believe me? Read your employee handbook/rules/regulations (or whatever they call it) about the rules of who retains property rights, I'm sure it's mentioned.

And nobody has a website designed for them without also purchasing all copyright laws. There may be agreements where the web designer retains the right to have their name appear at the bottom of the page, but under no condition would the designer have any rights to the website; it's simple work for hire.

The only part that isn't true is the website and copyright. There are plenty of websites out there which are sold without copyright.

Take a look at the template sites. You can purchase templates. So can other companies. If you both have the same template, you can't sue each other for copyright infrinement. So a designer *could* sell a site without copyright if the purchaser agreed. They wouldn't have exclusive right to the design.

Now you *can* purchase things exclusively off of those template sites, but they are usually 10x or more than the non-exclusive price.

Though in most cases, any company hiring an external designer would most likely gain copyright to their design - especially if it incorporated their existing logo, etc.

 

[OdiN]

Originally posted by: boatillo
Geez you people sure are ridiculously vicious! You remember that time when you didn't know the answer to something, so you asked someone else who might know? Wow, yea advice! Let's see....no copyright lawyer sitting beside me, don't know one and don't want to pay one, who else might know....oh ya! Possibly experienced individuals who are completely disconnected from the situation!

Thanks for the advice. Next time you might want to remember that everyone doesn't know everything like you do.

This has nothing to do with complicated copyright laws.

It's a pretty simple concept which most working people understand.

It's really common sense.

If I spent 3 years at a company developing say an extensive inventory control program, if I left and went to a competitor and used the same program for them, I could be in trouble.

 

[Injury]

OH MAN! I knew this all sounded really familiar.

 

[boatillo]

Yea, sucks here.

 

[paulxcook]

I wish someone would've quoted the OP so I could know exactly what was going on.

 

[Injury]

Originally posted by: paulxcook
I wish someone would've quoted the OP so I could know exactly what was going on.

1) Hates job
2) Thinks boss is a mean jerkface
3) Was told to design website even though that's not what he was hired for
4) Thinks he owns website because it's not in his job description to make it
5) Wanted to take the site offline when he quits at end of year


Pretty much sums it up.

 

[aphex]

Ya know, not sure which I find more offensive. The fact that you would even consider doing such a stupid thing, or the fact that you seem to edit out the OP in every thread where you are set straight by the collective opinion of the forum.