Website Legal Checklist

A company’s website is a valuable asset. For Internet based companies, it is often its most valuable asset.

Business owners often are plagued by problems resulting from their websites. These problems primarily result from business owners’ lack of knowledge of the fundamental things they should have and know about their website.

With hardball trademark tactics and copyright trolls, the Internet has become an often perilous place for business owners. The following is a checklist of information that a business website owner must have.

1. The business should own the domain. Not a partner individually, someone’s spouse, etc. But, the corporation, LLC, or partnership must own the domain.

2. Possess all access information for your domain. You, personally, should have the username and password for the account that manages your domain – e.g. the GoDaddy account with which you bought your business’s domain.

3. Own all domains around your main domain. If your primary domain is xyzwidget.com, then buy xyzwidget.biz, xyzwidget.net, xyzwidget.org, xyzwidget.xxx, xyz-widget.com, xyz-widget.net, xyz-widget.org, etc. Spend some money and buy them all up

4. Use a reputable website designer. Not a friend or a relative or employee. They’ll make mistakes and break the law.

5. Have a contract with the designer. You must have a written contract with your web designer. The contract should spell out the services and the price and contain two terms:

a. The designer’s work is “work for hire”. You will own the content, not the designer.

b. All stock art, photos, content will be licensed. There should be a line item in the contract for the cost of getting licenses for stock photos. Do not allow your designer to put someone else’s pictures, art or photos on your website without a license or permission.

6. Protect your trademarks. If you do not register your trademarks, unscrupulous persons might try to take them away from you – particularly now that you are broadcasting them to the Internet.

7. Post terms and conditions of use and a privacy policy on your website. If you will be doing business on the website, you must have terms and conditions of use and a privacy policy.

8. Know your host. You need to know who is the company that is hosting your website (and probably providing you email service) and you should be in direct contract with that company.

9. Have your FTP information. You must also have the FTP (File Transfer Protocol) information and any other information that will allow you full access to the site and transfer the site to another server.

10. File your copyrights. Once your site is complete, file a copyright registration for its content.

This post is not so much informational as a checklist to be referred to by a business owner when starting a company’s website. If you need any help with any of the above items, please contact me. We have extensive experience with each of these areas.

Copyright Trolls - Don't use stock pictures without a license

Intellectual property has become a hardball arena in recent years. Small businesses steal trademarks and trade secrets from each other.  Patent trolls file serial lawsuits extorting money from busineses. Now we have copyright trolls.


A client was recently threatened with legal action by a stock photo company.  This stock photo company sells photographs on-line for use in websites.  Typically, a website owner or developer can download and use a photo for a royalty of $5.00 to $10.00.

My client had a stock photo on his website.  He received a demand letter from a stock photo company that had the rights to sell licenses to use this photo.   My client's website developer had downloaded this photo from somewhere (the developer was a little vague).

The stock photo company initially demanded $1,500.00 and threatened to take legal action if not paid.  My client discussed the matter with the stock photo company which progressively lowered its demand to around $900.00.

The threat of legal action was serious.  If you use a computer to download copyright protected art from a website and use it on your website, you can be liable for up to $150,000 in statutory damages, plus statutory attorneys fees, per download.  So, the potential exposure was huge, even for a lousy stock photo.

The stock photo company had an entire division devoted to collecting large fees from companies that had used the stock photo company's photos without authorization.  They searched the Internet with special software that looked for their photos and then checked to see if the use of the photos was authorized.  If not, then they would aggressively demand outrageous fees and threaten legal action.  Furthermore, the photos on the company's website were easily downloaded without payment of a royalty and watermarks were easy to crop out.  The company essentially had a copyright troll division searching out the unwary using their cheap photos.

In my client's case, the photo on his website was not registered with the U.S. Copyright Office.  Since it was not registered, the stock photo company could not collect the huge statutory damages but only actual damages, in this case about $5.00.  My client removed the photo from his website and the stock photo company left him alone when we asked for registration information.

Lessons:
1.   Do not use someone else's photos, pictures, videos, etc. on your website. 
2.   If you are a web developer, pay all royalties necessary for every bit of art on a website.
3.   Ask you website developer for proof of a license for all stock photos or other art on a website.  You will have to pay the price if the developer stole them.