It is easy to assume that you automatically own the intellectual property rights to your company’s website. After all, you’ve purchased the domain name, hired a developer to build website, written the content and your staff manage the day to day running of the site.
However, intellectual property rights for websites can be complex. Websites are composed of various creative elements – including the logo, coding, domain name, photos and text – all of which have individual IP rights attached to them. Without securing all the IP rights affecting your website, you could find that you own less of your company website than you imagined, leaving you in a vulnerable position.
What are intellectual property rights?
Intellectual property (IP) rights gives the creator of a piece of intellectual property – something unique that they have created – ownership over that property. This could be anything from a scientific discovery to a piece of artwork, a song or book. The IP rights protect the property from being stolen, duplicated or used by anyone else without the owner’s permission.
Whilst the IP rights initially belong to the creator, they can be sold or licenced to others as required. In the case of a website, the IP rights to all the different components of your website will need to be purchased or licenced individually in order to protect any aspect of the website from being copied or ripped off by another company.
IP is a collective term covering various types of asset, such as patents, trademarks and copyright, etc. The legal rights differ slightly for each category and the IP rights for websites will fall into several different categories. There are therefore several areas to consider.
Design rights
When using an external web design agency to build your website, the default position is that the agency will automatically own the IP rights for the website. You should therefore ensure your contract with the design agency stipulates that the design rights are assigned to you as far as possible. This will give you the full ownership of your website design, meaning the agency could not reuse the work done on your website to create a site for another company. If your design is simply from a pre-existing template, it may not be possible to own these rights outright.
In the case of a dispute, where the customer is dissatisfied, refuses to pay or wishes to move to a different agency, the developer may withhold the source codes to the website if they still own the rights to them, leaving the business unable to access their website.
Copyright
Copyright is the IP right used for creative work such as written text, audio or pictures. If your employees create content for your website within their working hours, the company automatically owns the copyright to their work. However, if external copywriters are used or photos, video or audio files are sourced externally, the copyright for this content may belong to its creator. As with design rights, the contract with any subcontractor who creates content for your site should include the transfer of copyright over to your business upon completion.
As well as securing the IP rights to your own website, it is important to ensure you are not infringing on anyone else’s IP rights in the creation of your site. Make sure you are not including any photos that you do not have copyright to, or plagiarising text from another source.
Trademarks
Trademarks are used to protect business names, logos and slogans. They prevent any other business from copying your branding or passing off as your brand in order to sell their own product. A trademark must be something distinctive, which distinguishes your goods or services from your competitors. Registering your brand name as a trade mark can also give your company a sense of status as a reputable brand. Trademarks are valid for a 10 year period and must then be renewed every 10 years.
Since your company name and logo will be an important part of your website, registering a trademark on them will protect your site from imitation.
Domain name
Many people think that they own the domain name of their website. However, when you buy a domain name, you in fact simply purchase the licence to use it. By registering your domain name as a trademark you can ensure that you are able to maintain exclusive rights over this domain name.
If another company uses your trademark within their domain name you can take legal action against them for misleading the public and infringing on your registered trademark. Alternatively there is an internet domain name dispute resolution process that will enable you to prohibit their use of the domain name.
Software and Database rights
An automatic database right exists on any database that has been created to collate data, as well as the copyright on the data itself. This will therefore apply to any databases used to power your website. So long as you own these databases, you can restrict anyone else from extracting or using data from them, as well as having the copyright over the content.
The software that your website is built on – for example Wordpress or Shopify – will be owned by the software company, as is the server that your website is hosted on. Instead of owning the IP, you will have licencing agreements with these software companies giving you the right to use their software in your website. Make sure that your use of them is in accordance with the terms of your agreement, to avoid any disputes.
How to protect your website IP rights
It is easy for the intellectual property rights for websites to be overlooked, particularly as they involve so many components. Your contract with your web design agency, copywriters and other sub-contractors should be carefully worded to cover the essential elements. These may include expectations on time scales, arrangements for the termination of contract, access to source codes and final intellectual property ownership. Without defining the small print, you may end up owning a lot less of your website than you realise.
The contents of this article do not constitute legal advice and are provided for general information purposes only.
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