(I hope this is in the right forum) I had a coder develop me a design and the starting of a website. However he got hard to contact and eventually I just finished the rest without him. Now I gave word of mouth that I was going to sell the site but the person who is in possession hasn't even paid me yet. I still have control over the domain and I paid/registered everything. But the original creator placed his little copyright on the bottom of the site under his development company. So do I have the right to just yank back my site, or atleast domain? Edit: I just realized I made a typo in the title :/
From my understanding, you hired a developer to do a website that you were later going to sell. Eventually, that developer became unreachable and you finished the work your own. (Any work paid in advance and not comlpeted?) Regarding the copyright note, was there anything mentioned about that before he started his development work for you? Was he going to sell you the copyrights to the design to you? If that matter is unclear, I suggest that you email him about that and give the guy reasonable time to respond. Keep record of all correspondence for future reference. Regarding the other deal with the website buyer, unless a successful transaction has been registered, a deal breaks if payment is delayed with no reason for a long period of time. Word of mouth doesn't win in court. The buyer will need proof of purchase and since you're saying he did not pay yet, you are still the legal owner of the website. Is the domain name registered under your name? If so, you have it, otherwise it's gone..