Re: FN-FORUM Copyright

date posted 1st October 2001 15:52

This is very tricky as the domain name is technically "owned" by the ISP. If
the ISP wont cooperate then the client could try and get the name transfered
to them by the relevant naming authority. If they are a registered company
and can prove that the site belongs to their business then they may get
lucky. I recently managed to get a name transfered to a company where the
name had been similarly registered by the original designer as owned by
them, (ie the designer) who then left the company and emigrated oversees
never to be heard of again, but it took a while and lots of grief.
If the code was sold to the company then they own the code (but not
neccessarily the copyrights / right to copy that code) It really depends on
whether the ISP copyrighted the code and then sold it "under license" to the
company. (unlikely unless they were particularly smart thinking!) The
ISP/original designer could argue that he sold a "service to supply an
internet presence" to the company and that the site and everything on the
site is owned by him/her.
If the company has some kind of maintenance contact that the original
designer is not fulfilling they could threaten to sue...

Situations like this are usually quite cloudy and we could (and prolly will)
debate this for a week. The moral of the story being to always enter into
clear contracts in the beginning so that these diputes are less likely to
arise

Keith White
Netrickery



> 1) Can the ISP refuse to give me the userid and password to impliment
> the change?
> 2) Who owns the code of the site? (the clients produced the design, the
> ISP coded it, the client has paid for it)
> 3) If the ISP goes bust/refuses to cooperate, how does the client move
> their site as the ISP has bought the domain name on their behalf, and is
> shown as "the owner" to the world in general.
>
> I've now got a client who is losing business because they can't get the
> application on their site, and could go bankrupt. I've also got their
> ISP wanting to put the application development on the back burner (two
> years so far). The client can't move their site to another ISP.
>
> Any comments/suggestions greatfully received.
>
> Thanks
> Mart
>
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