website copying/publishing

[crinny]

What is the name of your state? new york

i designed, built & published a website for a local volunteer organization. all registration is in my name. They have copied everything off of the site and published it on their own site under a new domain. I did not register a copyright. do i have any rights?

 

[divgradcurl]

Did you have a contract with the organization? Were you an employee of the organization?

all registration is in my name

What do you mean here? It says later that you didn't register a copyright.

 

[crinny]

No contract with the org ..not an employee..just a member of the club trying to be a nice guy. I never paid for a copyright which I understand is not necessary to protect your work...but i am not a lawyer! is this true?

 

[crinny]

re:all registration in my name: domain, hosting, payments for same all in my name, nothing in the org name..thanks

 

[divgradcurl]

I never paid for a copyright which I understand is not necessary to protect your work...but i am not a lawyer! is this true?

Yes, this is true. The way you wrote your post was just confusing. I'm not a lawyer either.

In the absence of a contract, the copyright in a work done by a contractor, even if directed by the client, belongs to the contractor. The tougher part is enforcing your rights. You could start by asking them to take down the site, or ask them for payment, or whatever would make you happy. If they don't do it voluntarily, though, you will have to get a lawyer involved.

 

[crinny]

thank you! i have asked them to remove the copied info from the site giving them 5 days to do it . next step to notify the hosting company of the copying? can i turn them in to the fcc,fta,state regulatory agencies? thank you!

 

[crinny]

they also got into the site , edited pages, deleted some files and changed passwords(which i had given someone who i trusted ) and tried to change all the account info..iewnership etc. can i do anything about that? thanks

 

[divgradcurl]

next step to notify the hosting company of the copying? can i turn them in to the fcc,fta,state regulatory agencies? thank you!

You can notify the hosting company, but don't be suprised if they are unwilling to help out without some evidence that you do, in fact, own the copyright. Registration is evidence of ownership, that's why people register their copyrights. How much evidence will it take to convince the hosting company? Who knows.

As far as notifying agencies, this is a civil matter, between you and the infringer -- there are no agencies which are responsible for enforcing copyrights. There are criminal remedies a DA could use to punish infringers. However, without a registered trademark or a judicial finding that you are the true owner of the copyright, you won't be able to prove the necessary "willfulness" to make a criminal charge stick. Plus, the infringement has to be done for some monetary gain for their to be a criminal charge.

they also got into the site , edited pages, deleted some files and changed passwords(which i had given someone who i trusted ) and tried to change all the account info..iewnership etc. can i do anything about that? thanks

Which site? Who owns the site? I assume you mean your domain. You apparently gave them access to your domain. What did the domain registrar say when you told them you didn't authorize the change in ownership? ditto for your web hosting company?

 

[crinny]

they did not gain access to the domain registrar..they only had access thru the hosting co editing the site etc and they tried to change ownership of that ..the hosting company was very cooperative afyter i provided proof that i was owner of record from the inception and blocked all other access to the site by changing all the passwords. that stoped them but they still copied the site and set up a new site ergo the problem..thanks