Protect your Website and Web Design

I am filled with consternation and dismay at the way people ignore their websites. I wonder why people who spend a bomd to design their websites are not worried enuogh to take care about it. Your website name, the website design is all your intellectual property and you have full rights over it, but rarely have I seen people being cautious to the ownership of their website or the web design that they paid so much for.

When you register a domain name, you get various options like .com, .net, .org, .in, .us, .info, .biz and much more. There are country specific domains also available like .in, .de, .uk, .us. Each country in the world have their own domain extensions. You can buy any of them. While .com, .net, .org, .info and others available for people around the world, the country specific domain names have their own set of rules. Some country specific domain names are available to all and any while some others are avilable only to the rsidents of that aprticular country.

A domain name is not purchased, it is basically rented out. You can rent out a domain from 1 year to a maximum of 15 years. When you rent out a domain name the ownership of the that particular name for that particular period of time is with you. You have unequivocal and irrevocable right over it. The registry keeps all the records for this. But, most of the companies are not aware of this things, they think that since they had paid for it to their web designer and they have an invoice for it, it belongs to them.

Reality cannot be more farther than truth. Usually, a web designer registers the doamin name in his ow name or his company name, and that is what gets registered with the domain registry and that records are final. No matter whatever documentary evidence you might have to prove that the domain name belongs to you and you have paid for it. In case of a dispute over the domain name, the registry records are counted as final and sadly, that would be in the name of your web designer. The web designer will also have a complete control over the management of the domain name and probably at the time of renewal the web designer can also ask you to shell out more money if you want to keep the domain name. There have been many cases, wherein due to lack of any options and knowledge the company has to pay more.

Do not let this happen to you, whenever you ask your web designer to book a domain name, make usre that you are given proper access to the control panel of the domain name, by which you can manage all the aspects of the domain name, viz; Admin Details, Registrant Details, Billing Details and Technical Details. You should also have the facility to change the name server records for your domain name.

If you wish to check, whether your domain name is registered in your name or not. Go to All Who is, and input your domain name. It will show you all the details. If it's in your name, well and good. Go ahead and ask your provider to furnish you with the Domain Control Panel and if it is not registered in your name, ask the provider to transfer it to your name and provdie the domain control panel to you.

Once you secure the domain name, you need to be absolutely sure that the web design that is being given to you is your ownership. The web designer does not have any right to sell the same design again to some other company. Even selling the same design with some changes in color is also not allowed. Once you pay for it, it becomes your intellectual property and you have every right over your intellectual property.

Be wary of web designers, who quote very cheap prices for web designing. If the prices are too good to believe, than be cautious. Most probably you are being sold off a copy of some previous website designed by the web designer. You do not want a web design for your company which is exactly the same as some other website and in the end be accused of copying their website.

To tackle this, and to know that you are getting an original web design you will have to get involved with your web designer from the start by giving him inputs about how your web design should look and what's your idea about the website. Give the web designer a hundred opinions about how your website should look and how it should complement your business activities --- by this yuo will make sure that the web designer designs an original website for you.

Ask the web designer to develop the website in stages and not at one go. Usually web designers, who copy from other websites, like to design websites at one go. If your web designer is doing that, it's time to be cautious. Once your website design is completely done and launched live on the web server, ask for a copy of the complete website complete with all the source codes and programming [if any], and make the balance payment only after that. Make sure that you secure this thing and keep it safely.

If the need be, you can also opt to apply for a copyright of your website so that no one else in the world can copy or tamper your website and pass it off as their own. Website copyrights can be done through Copyright India.

Web Design Temple, a web designing company designs websites and corporate multimedia presentations since the last 12 years. It is our policy to provide the source code of the complete website to the clients once the web designing is done with.

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