Design Copyright infringement. What can I do?

[kblessinggr]

Having no formal structure to your relationship will make a suit harder not easier. Sending a dmca take down to the host, google, etc. will probably get the job done, and takes all of 5 minutes to do. If you're unsuccessful with that there's plenty of dirty shit to do. Eli has a decent post on it btw. The message you want to send is that you are better at the Internet than they are and they're going nowhere until you are happy, so it doesn't matter if you are right or wrong.

Course if the other company is smart, they could get you into serious litigation for abusing the DMCA takedown notice.

 

[Andrew Scherer]

All you guys having $10 logos produced by strangers in the BST section ought to keep this in mind. If you were to turn one of those logos into a muti million dollar company your $10 Indian might show up knocking on your door looking for royalties. Keeping a little one page Work For Hire contract at your disposal to have anyone doing design work for you sign isn't a bad practice to get into.

+REP - doh You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Fatbat again.


any link on hand for a standard contract like that?

 

[magicberry]

I have one question.... If the client was to take their site to another developer/hosting company would you allow them to do that? or are they only allowed to take the content not the cms and design...

 

[Fatbat]

+REP - doh You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Fatbat again.


any link on hand for a standard contract like that?

Word... this is just the first of many example in ol' G but it's not too bad:

Work-for-Hire Contract

Others follow:

work for hire contract example - Google Search

Here's some more info Work for hire - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia though when it comes to making informed decisions I would seek the advice of someone who actually practices law and not Wikipedia

 

[nkobend]

Yeah, you're right, you are no lawyer. You have it backwards. Without a contract the designer owns everything.

bullcrappadashitbutt.

except in medieval societies, hiring and paying an employee generally establishes a whole raft of common laws including duty of care, implied rights of ownership, and such like.

If I pay you to come and build 4 brick walls (using a layout of your own), and then I put a roof on it, you can't come back and say 'I own the brick walls - if I'd known you were building a HOUSE, I'd have asked for more...' because you've already been paid. It would be a VERY funny court that would side with YOU in that case.

And as you can't show me a contract, but the employer CAN show me that he paid you money, I, the judge, will throw the case out as a twatbatslackwit waste of time. You'll get landed with costs too.

PS, I'm no lawyer either - I just made all that up.