applehead

There is no style guide. They have worked with no other company or freelancer. They are also not coca-cola. I dont have a problem with giving them the site theyve paid for as such. But as for updates, changes, if they wanted to do them, themselves they should have paid for a CMS. Therefore, any further changes post completion are chargable, by me or by whoever else they may get in to do it I guess. But at what point do you say, right. Stop. I want you to remove my name if you do that. ??? Is it fair to put a clause in keeping your attribution in place for say a couple of years? Payable sum to remove it earlier? This would guarantee promotion/advertising time from the project. I guess you could go further and say also no changes by anyone else except me for a period too, but thats probably bordering on unethical/unacceptable. This is all for covering the worst case, 'What if' type of scenarios. Im not saying this is happening to me now but trying to think ahead and for other future, possibly 'bad' clients who may come my way. Also, again @Renaissance, how do you (or you other guys too) handle changes etc? Surely you don't all hand over your working /progress /process files too, do you?

I just use a sony VAIO, z-series. Light weight, compact, stylish, and runs good old windows lol. Tho im liking the new retina macbook :/

i hate the fraudulent banking emails the worst. Ooh youve not used yoru account for 2 days, sign in here or we will delete it and u will lose your monies

LOL

I agree its a nice little add on and you can manage the sites too

thankfully ive not had any of this yet - but am not planning to put a phone number on my site for this reason. I'll only give my number out to clients once on board. Also you should take a look at flextel.co.uk - free redirect numbers!

is this actually about fish or am i missing something?

Thanks for the replies guys.. im really hoping I can find a solution in this thread. So please, keep your thoughts coming! That is exactly my thought Renaissance. So in that scenario, what would you do if a client said, oh we may decide to have an in-house team later on the line if we get one, make changes. How much of the copyright do you give away, and what would you charge extra for? I dont want my name tarnished because some cheapo kid or bad designer gets their hands on my work. So an additional 'pay-off' seemed logical in the event they wanted to remove my attribution links and fully 'own' the website. Relating back to the logo example; they paid me to build them a product. That is the finished website, excluding process files. The product, unless it comes with a CMS, is not editable. Surely that is not unreasonable? They have the rights to use it and host it where ever they like, but if they wanted to edit it, they should have paid for a CMS, no? If they want to Add pages/expand the site (bearing in mind do brand/style guide is to be created) how can I ensure it is done to a satisfactory level, if not done by me? Retain attribution on the pages I DID do, and have it off or missing from the butchered new pages?

Thanks for your reply... thing is though, the project hasn't been started yet so Ive no way of knowing how long any of it will take. The client wants this fee built into the contract prior to commencement. I guess its just the thought of letting one of 'your baby's' go like that, handing it over etc you know. What sort of figure would you guestimate for a small-medium portfolio style site, with a heavy css3, animation influenced theme? I dont know why but I had a few hundred in my mind. Are you sure you'd want your attribution removed? How would you prove you built the site in the first place as far as your own portfolio goes if there is no link back or evidence as such?

Hi all, Bit of a weird query here, ive never come across this (though it seems obvious it was going to happen sooner or later, now I think about it), but am not sure how to deal with this or put a price on the issue. Please allow me to explain... I received a phone call today from a prospect who is on the verge of 'signing' my contract for a new website development. It's a fairly basic/static site, no databases involved or anything. Anyway, I have in my terms of business that the site's copyright will remain with me (the thought behind this term was to prevent a client taking a site and then later editing, modifying it etc on the side, at home, perhaps even defacing it etc which could reflect really badly on me as a designer if not competently carried out - my thought was also to preserve my name and link on the footer of the sites I build (though I would happily negotiate to remove this if the client wished, perhaps for a further small fee.). The prospect hypothetically (his word not mine) asked, "If in 5 years time we wanted to host this (the website) ourselves and change or add to the website, if we had an in-house IT team.. how would this be effected by the copyright term in your T&C's?". Being a referral from another client I admitted I hadn't come across or ever had to deal with a situation like that. At this point he suggested a nominal fee could be paid at that point in time (to be defined in our contact *now* prior to work commencement) as a precautionary measure. My question is; How do you put a price on the copyright of a website that doesn't even exist yet? The client doesn't even have an old/current site. The one we are discussing will be his company's first. And whilst I don't envisage any problems and I do have faith and trust in him (likewise, I believe he does me).. he is clearly thinking about the future and perhaps if he had an in-house IT team at some point.... "What if?" ..and doesn't want to "loose the investment" he may make with me now to develop his site. My concern as a designer is the client defaces the site or makes unprofessional changes - while I wish to use the site in my portfolio - those changes may reflect badly on me. The clients concern is if he wants to move in-house at some point, will he *have* a website to move? Hence the nominal fee suggestion (I did also mention this would include or 'pay for' any source/editable files too, which he would not receive as part of the main development, layered graphics files, commented code, etc). So what would be your advice on this scenario, and how much would you want for the nominal fee / copyright rights? PS: If Im way off the mark with what I describe being in my terms (in terms of what is common or morally-acceptable), please let me know and tell me how you get around such problems/worries of clients potentially messing with your work when your name is on it, or even removing your name from it (there will be no CMS with this project, though it could be easily added later through the likes of Perch, etc).