For many businesses, setting up a web site is a relatively cheap way of gaining experience of the online world. Hundreds of web site providers now exist in the UK alone, and they will create a web site for you, provide computers for the web site to run on, and provide the connection to the rest of the Internet. The following is a list of topics you should think about when creating your own web site or negotiating with the web site provider.
Speed of response
You will need some guarantees that the computer running your web site, and the connection to the Internet, are powerful enough to cope with likely demand: there is nothing more frustrating than generating user interest and then not being able to satisfy it. The web site provider should have an obligation to provide facilities which will allow a minimum number of peak hour accesses.
Portability
What happens if, in the future, you wish to move your web site to another system, or to run it yourself on your own computers? Will you have access to the database and its associated software? Will the provider provide you with necessary support, both before and after you move the web site?
Who owns the design of the web site?
Not surprisingly, existing copyright legislation does not refer explicitly to web sites. However, there is a good argument that a web site will, as whole (and irrespective of any copyright protection that attaches to any copyright works, such as articles and photographs, contained in the web site) qualify for protection. Unless you provide otherwise in writing, the web site provider will own the copyright in the web site.
Rights clearance
Generally speaking, you will be providing the web site provider with materials (text, images, video, audio) to be included on the web site. Does your company have the rights to include these materials in a web site? Ideally, your acquisition documents will tell you what rights you have. If, as is often the case, there are no acquisition documents, putting these materials online will represent a calculated risk. In the newspaper and magazine industries rights and rights acquisition has become a contentious, and polarising, issue. In the US, it has already become the subject of litigation. In Franchini v New York Times and Mead, a number of freelance journalists have begun proceedings against the New York Times newspaper and the Mead database for making available online articles written by the journalists. Although the journalist were commissioned to write the articles by the New York Times, the journalists argue that their fee covered only the rights to publish the articles as art of the paper version of the NYT, and did not include any electronic rights.
This article is correct to the best of our knowledge and belief at the time of publication. It is however, written as a general guide, so it is recommended that specific professional advice is sought before any action is taken.
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