I could do with some advice on website ownership. I have been doing work for a company as a freelancer for about 5 months createing many websites for them. Now just recently i have decided to go alone and get my own work and sales people. Now they still owe me for a few site which is over £1000 but they are now dragging their heels and coming up with every excuse in the book not to pay. The question is even though i created the sites and the customers have seen them and paid this other company for them are website mine or theirs. there has been no documents signed that says that once the work is done that they own copyright for these websites. All the site were done using joomla and i still have full access to the admin and ftp so i could bring them down at any time. But is that the right thing to do. I have been asking for payment for 2 weeks and still i get no where. Still what can i do?? your opinions and advice would be good.
I would do the following: 1. Change the pasword access to ensure they 'customer' can not access the web hosting. 2. Let these guys know that ownership of the website content development will revert back to you within 7 days if they dont pay. 3. If after they dont pay on day 7 give them a final warning. 4. Place a note on their home page that the website will be closing in 48 hours. 5. Then if they still havent paid, remove all the files from the host company. As to copyright, place a line in the footer ... copyright owned by "your business name"
If you have been doing work for them as a freelancer then I would assume that you are legally registered to actually work as a freelancer and have as such raised an invoice for your works, which can be presented as evidence in a court. I would send them a credit blacklist warning by email followed up by a 7 day notice to pay via registered post. After which if no payment is forthcoming, take their sites down and proceed with a small claims (this is free to do and you dont need a lawyer) If you have been working "off the books", then there is not much you can do about it apart from take their sites down or mess up their code so bad its unusable and hope they dont get upset about it (which they will). You dont want to take legal action against a company who can disclose to the tax office that you have been working illegally. My advice is in regards to web sites is to not be afraid to say in writing who owns what. Clients always think they own everything just becasue they pay you.