Legal Advice Please

Wow, $900 is pretty steep for a 1 page design. And $117 a month is absolutely rediculous for hosting, even dedicated server hosting doesn't cost that much. They sound like cowboys to me.

Did you sign a contract or terms and conditions with them? If not, your not tied to any legally binding contract and you are in your own right to ask some questions.

Yes I did sign a contract, but I did not read anywhere on it that they have copyright to it.
I have not paid the hosting fee for the past two months and now they are on my back about it.

Looks like I have been truly cheated.
I have no idea what to do now.

Thank tou for your swift reply.
Sandra

Absolutely agree with the above individuals. The prices are totally rediculous.

Always check around and do research before investing your money into a service.

Best advice with consult with a lawyer as spoken by KirkMD also the payment processors if you did payment thru them.

Susie

Sandra,

Sorry you're having this issue - it stinks.

A lawyer is the only one that can answer your questions unfortunately. That said, at least in the U.S., web design falls under a work for hire situation. The company/person paying the bill would own the design because they are paying someone to do the work.

I wish you a speedy (and inexpensive) resolution!

Gary

Thank you all for your advice,
I am going to a lawyer next week, this whole thing has made
me quite ill.

I reread the contract and it says to terminate I have to give 6 months
notice and all money owing must be paid in full up to date of termination.
I guess that means I have to pay the hosting fee up to then as I paid
for the design in full at time of completion.
Thank you all I will let you know what the lawyer says next week.
Sandra

Hello All,
Update the lawyer has looked over the contract and I am stuck with it
I have put in writing to cancel it and in six months once I have paid all I owe
I will be given the site and copyright.

Thank you
Sandra

I'd like to see this $900AUD one page design because it must surely be the most fantastic one page website design EVER SEEN ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD!

I have an acquaintance that found himself in a similar situation with Banners. He paid for them and was using them but when he wanted to ditch the company they wouldn't hand over the originals without a further $500 fee being paid. They said they owned the copyright. The file type completely distorted when he copied them so could not be used for print.

He was able to walk away but he still had no banners so..

All the images used in the banners were his, so his solution was to have a new designer make new versions that looked almost identical. It cost him a tiny fraction of what the original banner designer wanted to release the originals.

Therefore once your one page design is back online either you or a web designer copy it, screen shot it or whatever. Then later should your cowboy website design company try to cause you further financial grief, you will at least have a copy.

A website designer would be able to produce a one page website from that copy very easily - copying is much easier than being original - and for a tiny fraction of the costs you have already incurred.

Legal - This cowboy website design company, by stating that they retain copyright of your website they are also taking responsibility for the content of that website and the activities of the business it represents. Your business. So they are financially liable for any legal action taken against your business in relation to that web page.

So my approach would be to make use of that fact in the form of a threat of legal action aimed at the copyright holder - them. Turn the tables on them.

Thank you for that info Indigojack,
Here is what happened, my husband had a book published not knowing much about this we paid $1200 for them to edit and print 2000 copies we were given 100 of those copies,
The publisher told us we need a website to advertise the book and he would arrange it
telling us it needs to be professional to get in to top of google and other search engins
so we agreed beliving he knew what he was doing, now this is where he brings in another company to sell the book and build the site. when it was first shown to me I told him the background was bad and gave him one I had and they used it then I asked for the format to be bigger as I could not read it. I have been around long enough to know how to read source code and when I checked it had no meter tags so I asked for them to add some plus maybe put a google sitemap in they added the tags but not the map.

I asked if for the price I paid could they add a about the Author page as my husband wanted to have that to also put some photos relevant to his book, but they said no and put a logo to a facebook page and a logo to a wordpress site I have no login details for when I asked about this they said I have to write and request the details I did not bother asking again for the website to be built my way but they refused when I asked about copyright they did not answer me if you look at the site you will see the copyright is in their name.
Since we have had this problem we have found out that we are with what is known as a vanity publisher and they are not recommended by other Authors we have spoken to.
That said the contract is legal and binding the way it is written.
I asked again why is the hosting fee so high and they said some went to them advertising the site so I asked where they are advertising they said on network sites and news papers I have not seen any advertising apart from what I have done myself

I have been in our library and looked through all the news papers and not one mention of our book so I am stumped as when I email them with a question they get around it somehow.
If its okay here is the site The Night I Went Out With Tracy
I am not good at website building but I did have a craft site some time ago on wordpress and it looked better that this.
I would love to know what you think.
Once again
Thank you.
Sandra

Look at this article;

AIGA Center for Practice Management - Copyright Basics for Graphic Designers

under these two article titles below...

These are the laws in the US concerning Graphic Design and most people do not know them.

My goodness, 900$ for a 1 Page Design. That design must have Gold in it. Anyway, I advice that you just do the math. If you think going back at them will cost you more than just settling. Settle.

If I were in your position, I'd just use the last six months and utilize whatever I can than go and make a fight. I don't want to make things complicated. I'd rather be off doing things that can make me more money than spending more and start a fire.

But hey, I agree with a lot of you guys. 900$ for a 1 page design and 100$ a month for hosting is a ripoff.

Also, the page is Flash.
Has no DocType (so it is not validly coded)
And no meta description which is more important the meta key words since Google does not consider meta key words for rank.

So SEO will be quite poor on this page.

"The night I went out with Tracy" is a pretty unique line and should rank #1 with ease. Especially with an identical URL. But it fails because of the items above.

Just thought I would mention it..

EWGQDD, I just read this above what you mentioned

Copyright is the exclusive right to control reproduction and commercial exploitation of your creative work. Copyright protects any kind of artwork, including illustrations, photographs and graphic design. Except under certain circumstances (see “work made for hire” below), you own the copyright in your work at the moment you create it in a “fixed” form of “expression.” A fixed form of expression is any tangible medium that can be perceived by humans, including traditional forms—such as paintings, sculptures, writings—and new forms that require a machine to perceive (e.g., GIF files, CDs, websites).

Is it their creative work when I supplied the news article the photo and the background?
Or is it my work that they just stuck together?
And yes I am trying to get out as soon as I can, I am just riding it out as I don't have much money left to hire lawyers for a fight.

Tina thank you, they said the cost included advertising but I have been advertising in as many places as I can and have not seen any evidence of them advertising and when I asked where they placed ads I did not get a coherent answer.
So I will look into that.

This has made me ill with stress and my husband is even worse he is in hospital, in a few hours he will be having surgery he has been so stressed his blood pressure skyrocketed and he got chest pains we thought he was having a heart attack but they found a blockage in his carotid artery so are clearing it.
This is why I am here trying to sort it out before the stress kills him.

I will keep you all posted on my next move.
and thank you for giving me some more ammo to fire at these people.
Bless you

Go get'm!

This is sickening, to think that there are businesses that want to pull this kind of horse manure on unsuspecting business owners.

Good luck to you.

And there are a number of GREAT graphic designers here on the WF. I have hired several, been super pleased, and their prices are great.

When you get your legal matters resolved, just come back to the WF for your website needs - I think you will be pleasantly surprised at the quality, customer service, and pricing you get from the members here.

Mike

UK copyright law is much the same as US copyright law as referred to by EWGQQD.

They are using copyright law to screw money out of you and it's disgusting.

There is an element of 'fair practise' that the vast majority of web designers/graphic designers employ when working for a client. Mostly it is unwritten because they are not out to screw the client.

There are two points of query here:
1.Does their contract state in explicit detail that they retain copyright even after you have paid their $900 fee?
2.What they have done, they haven't done very well. They can't hold you to a contract if their work is rubbish and is harming your chances of selling your product.

Do you have any sort of access to a control panel for the gold plated one page site? If not, have you ever? Have they always withheld access to your webpage from you?

You only have 100 copies of the books that you have paid for. You need them all. Why are they withholding them? Is there going to be another tussle to gain possession of those?

I am really sorry that this has happened to you.

Your terms of your contract are whatever you agree to.

Honestly, I think the site looks like it was designed by a professional graphic artist. A lot of professional agencies charge more than that just for a poster or flyer.

Would I have put something up on the internet like that regardless of how pretty it was? No, but it is your responsibility to find out what you are getting when you signed the contract.

It's not like you paid $900 for a site using an Xfactor template.