I’ve been thinking recently about looking after myself, and my assets… and how to make my online business work.
Understanding what the value is in your business will stand you in great stead.
One valuable part of your business is the intellectual property rights in the content displayed on your website, most likely copyright, trade marks and possibly database right.
It’s important to put users on notice that these rights are exclusive to the owner of them (whether this is the business or third parties e.g the web developer – ideally you would own the website). As website owner, you should place a notice on each page stating that they are proprietary. This is often placed in a footer.
A copyright notice in the following form would provide a copyright work with the benefits of a notice under UK law:
Copyright © [name of copyright owner] [year of first publication].
Is your website going to have user-generated content? If you do the terms of use need to deal with ownership of copyright in that content. For example, some social media sites (such as Facebook) require from their users a licence of all intellectual property rights in content that is being carried on the site.
Remember if you’d like expert guidance on starting your online business the right way, making sure you are protected legally from day one, then get in touch and I’ll arrange a free initial consultation to see how I can help – alternatively you may wish to download our suite of legal templates for digital businesses here.