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Clearing Up the Confusion E-Zine Vol 02 Issue 08
------- Clearing Up the Confusion E-Zine -------
Vol 2, Issue 8
In the last issue we started talking about your website and who
really owns it. Apparently it touched a bit of a nerve based on
the response I received. The cool thing is, one of the responses
was from a friend of mine, Chris Juillet, who is an intellectual
property lawyer. He told me that I only scratched the surface of
some of the issues. Fortunately for us, we was willing to share
some of his knowledge. Be sure to check out his article in the
Guest area.
In the meantime, I will also be delving into this area more,
myself. This time we'll be looking at some of the signs that you
might not be in control of your own website.
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In This Issue...
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1. Article: Who Has Control?
2. Blog Posts
3. Guest Article: You *paid* for it, but you may not *own* it
4. Shameless Self-Promotion
5. The Fine Print
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1. Article: Who Has Control?
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Last issue we talked about the problems which can arise if you
don't have control over your own website. The challenges can
range from the inconvenience of being locked into using a single
web designer to the tragedy of losing months or years of effort
at building your online presence. So, we agree that it is a Bad
Thing. How do you know if you are in danger? Let's take a look
at some questions you can ask of yourself to better assess the
situation.
1. Are you paying for the site?
Very few things in life are free. Unless you have your site on
one of several advertising-supported systems, *someone* must pay
for it. Usually whoever is paying for it has the ultimate
control over it. Check your financial statements for a monthly,
quarterly, or annual payment for your hosting services. If you
can't find anything, then you might want to start to worry.
2. Who hosts the website?
As long as you've got your statements out, check to see *who* you
are paying. If you see either a national hosting service such as
GoDaddy.com or 1and1.com, or even one which is more local, you
are probably in pretty good shape. If you are paying your web
developer, then they are probably hosting it for you. This may
initially seem like a good idea. After all the developer
probably will be cheaper than a third-party service and why not
have everything in the same spot? The downside is that this
often means that you (or someone else you might designate) won't
have the ability to upload new information to your website.
Also, if your developer ever goes out of business, what happens
to your site? I've even seen it happen where someone has had a
falling-out with their developer -- with disastrous results.
3. Where is your site registered?
This is often, but not always, the same place where your website
is hosted (see #2 above). You can think of the registrar as the
one who tells everyone else where to find your website. One of
the best ways to find out is to check one of the "Who Is" sites.
The one I've been looking at is AllWhoIs.com. Type in your
domain name (the part of your website URL that comes after the
"www" and ends in ".com", ".org", ".net", etc) and hit "Search".
In a few moments you will see a pile of information that makes
little sense and isn't particularly standardized. I checked
three different sites and each came back with different amounts
of information. Somewhere in that mess, though, you should be
able to find out who are the registrant, administrative, and
technical contacts for your site. If it's a company, you *might*
be OK. Chances are it's your hosting service. If it's an
individual, then be sure you know who that is, because they are
the ones who control your online identity.
4. Do you know if your hosting service is Windows- or
Unix/Linux-based?
If any of the URLs on your site end in ".asp" or ".htm", then you
are probably on a Windows-based site. if they end in ".php",
".pl", or ".html" then it is probably Unix/Linux-based. This
isn't a hard-and-fast rule, but it is a good indicator. One of
the reasons to know this is so that if you do decide to have work
done on your site, you will be able to find a firm who can help
with your particular type of site. Many companies service only
one or the other. I just recently ran into an organization that
had a hard time finding someone who could help them with their
Windows-based site due to a lack of developers who could support
their needs for a price they could afford. This is not to say
that one is definitely better than the other (though I have my
biases), it's more just a good idea to have that knowledge about
your site so that you can make better decisions down the line.
5. Do you have the access information for your site?
This is a big one. By access information I mean whatever someone
needs to know in order to make changes to your website. At the
minimum this would be the username, password, and address
(something like ftp.yourcompany.com) necessary to upload new
pages to your site. Most hosting services also provide what they
call a "control panel" which gives the site owner access to many
of the website features. This also usually requires a username,
password, address combination. If your site has a different
registrar than your hosting service (see #3 above), then it, too,
will have a different set of username/password/address
information. If you know who is hosting the site (#2) and/or who
the registrar is (#3), you can quite often go to the site for
that service and they will have a mechanism for retrieving lost
or forgotten passwords.
I'm probably forgetting some of the questions you should ask, but
these cover a majority of what you should know. These questions
are not designed to scare you or to cause you to have paranoid
delusions that your current web developer is out to get you. The
goal here is merely to help you understand your current
position. If you are happy and comfortable with that position,
whatever it is, then you don't need to do anything. If not,
however, next issue we'll cover some preventive and palliative
measures to put you more in the driver's seat with your online
presence.
Copyright 2008, Greg Peters
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2. Blog Posts
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Links to posts on the "Clearing Up the Confusion" Blog from the
last year:
Thursday, November 08, 2007 -- On the Web: Defining Some Terms
http://clearing-confusion.blogspot.com/2007/11/on-web-defining-some-terms.html
"I've spoken with a few networking contacts and prospects lately
and I've discovered that there is some confusion as to the
entities which govern how we interact with the Web. So, without
further ado, here are a few of the terms a website owner should
know..."
Wednesday, April 26, 2006 -- Another Unexpected Pleasure
http://clearing-confusion.blogspot.com/2006/04/another-unexpected-pleasure.html
"... I had a surprisingly good experience just the other day. I
have been in the process of moving to a new web hosting service
for my company's website, http://cyberdatasolns.com, for about
the last month. It always takes a while to go through this
process, what with moving all the content and testing it on the
new service. The final step, prior to canceling the old website,
is to tell your Domain Name Registrar that the site has
moved. Most of these services actually have online facilities to
make these changes. Mine, Network Solutions, Inc., was no
exception...."
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3. Guest Article: You *paid* for it, but you may not *own* it
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by Christopher Juillet, Attorney at Law
It seems simple enough. You walk into the store, select your
item, pay the clerk, and walk out with your purchase. Your
purchase. What you bought, you own, right? Well, if you're buying
food or clothing or some other tangible item, that is indeed the
case. If, however, you're buying writing services, graphics
services, photographic services, programming services, even
website design services, simply paying your vendor might not mean
that you actually own the work. Such is the law when dealing with
these sorts of products, which fall under the broad category of
"intellectual property."
According to the law, when someone creates a work of intellectual
property, they, not the client, owns the work. They hold
"copyright" (the exclusive right to copy) of that work, whether a
photo, drawing, brochure, computer program or website file. This
means that unless the person who created the work gives
permission to copy or modify the work, that work cannot be copied
or modified by another.
Now, there are numerous exceptions to this general rule, but one
relevant to this brief discussion is when the work is a "work for
hire." Works made for hire are those developed for a company by
an employee under the scope of that employment. Basically, this
means that the project was done by a W2-status employee using
company resources, on company time, and as assigned by his or her
supervisor. In this case, ownership of the work is held by the
employer, not the employee.
Whenever you are contracting with an outside vendor for the
development of intellectual property, it is absolutely essential
that you receive from that vendor a signed agreement stating that
you, not they, hold all ownership rights in the resulting work,
including all rights to copy, print and modify the work. You also
need to stipulate that you will receive all electronic copies of
the work.
If the vendor you plan to use will not comply with this
requirement, you give them your business (and your money) at your
peril. You may get what the product you desire -- you may pay for
that product as delivered -- but you may not own that work and
you may find yourself at that vendor's mercy if you want to use
the work later or make modifications.
For a more detailed discussion of this and other topics relevant
to intellectual property and small business, visit
www.juilletlaw.com and click on Articles.
Christopher Juillet is an Ann Arbor-based attorney focusing on
business, internet, intellectual property, estate planning and
probate. He can be reached at 734-827-9450 or
chris@juilletlaw.com.
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4. Shameless Self-Promotion
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The "Clearing Up the Confusion" E-Zine is a production of Greg
Peters, owner, chief cook, and bottlewasher of Cyber Data
Solutions. CDS has been helping website designers develop better
web presence for their clients for more than a decade. Visit us
on the Web at www.cyberdatasolns.com to see how we can help your
webmaster.
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5. The Fine Print
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