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This has been bothering me for a while. I have an old freelance client of mine I’ve created an web site for (his company) it was small one so I took the complete payment before deployment and I needed no contract. I deployed the complete version of the site on my server, bought the domain for his company under my name and it has been running for a year now.
Lately he had asked me to give admin privileges to his son (cs student 1y) to upload some photos of their new building. I noticed he ruined several functions on the site in doing so, but I was never paid to support that just the hosting for a year.
When I was making the design I made a simple but pretty logo as a placeholder for the site which went in production since they never gave me company logo. All good, no contract small cash all delivered, everyone happy.
Up until few days when I saw my f**king logo cut out from the site as 250px jpeg and made as a huge banner on the company building..
From my pov I would’ve never given permission to use that since its not something i’m proud of and would suggest to make a better one for a fee. I see this as stolen/unauthorized use of intellectual property. But the laws are super shitty in our country so at this point I am stuck at taking their site, domain a hostage until they pay for the logo they used or take it down or taking legal actions.. we never signed anything about that logo.

Comments
  • 2
    This is where a contract would protect your work, in this case i think you’re out of luck on this one.

    If they paid for the the site, and all it’s works, and there’s an invoice of some kind, then they own the rights.

    A contract that specifically says they don’t own the rights to any of the works, which is a bit weird since it’s specifically for their company, would let you retain any rights you think you own.

    Let this one slide, and know for the next project to have a shiny piece of paper to protect yourself.
  • 0
    @C0D4 they don’t own any of it, nor the site nor the content, the contract is more of invoice type, I own the site, the domain, it’s hosted on my server and they don’t have a physical copy of any of it
  • 0
    @tsvetant just trying to give some friendly advise, having possession of a website doesn’t prove who owns it.

    I don’t know about your local laws specifically, but look at what the client payed for, was it for your time and only your time?, or did they pay for the website?

    If it was the latter then without an actual contract for the work, the odds are they would own it, if they only payed for your time then you probably have a leg to stand on but I would seek a lawyers advise on that matter as well if you wanted to do anything about it.
  • 0
    @C0D4 thank you, it’s for my time. I appreciate your comments, I think I will stick to taking their site hostage till they pay or take down the logo 😅
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