[pilgrim_fgau]

Hi Guys

As some of you may be aware, I am in the process of starting a web design business and I am just clearing up as many queries as possible before I throw myself in the deep end.

I have a brief understanding about the intellectual property rights to the website, in that, without a seperate written agreement, I as the developer would own the IPR to the work.

What I want to know is what you guys do in this case?

Do you retain ownership of the work? Or do you draw up an agreement with the client to transfer all or some of the IPR to the client?

And what ever one you do, why do you choose to either keep the IPR or transfer them to the client?

Im just trying to get my head around which would be the best option to go for?!

Thanks

[Glowbridge]

Standard fair is usually to keep control of all the rights but grant your client worldwide/forever usage to do what they want with it, with attribution. Although some clients don't want to attribute so you can negotiate there.

That way the client doesn't have to worry about modifying on top of what you've done over the next years and you can re-use the useful bits in other projects.

Just remember to stipulate that you are handing over the rights to your work, not necessarily the rights to the entire site because you may not own everything. So you should add something about making sure any external work you use is allowed to be sold by you at the time the contract is signed.

Essentially you just wanna say everything I do is mine but you can do what you want with it, forever.
Anything anyone else has done is theirs but they've given it a license that lets me sell it to you.