Spudgun R32

ok folks, you'll have to excuse my lack of pc/internet/legal knowledge on this one, so here goes....

six years ago i had my business website site up for me by a company 'a'. then as time went by i thought it would be more practical and economical to use a much more local company. so company 'a' transferred my site to company 'b' without any hassle at all. i own my websites name too.

now for the past few years its been apparent that i seem to be paying over the odds to have pictures added to my site and ive decided to move my site to another host who are considerably cheaper. but here lies the problem......

company 'b' will not transfer my site!

they are claiming that as theyve used "special coding and programming that is unique to them" and therefore do not want competitors knowing there secret voodoo (see, told ya i dont know about tinternet stuff), so they are saying they will basically allow me to leave with my domain name only and i will lose all my site i.e pictures, layout etc etc.

now, ive paid these people a lotta dosh over the last few years to add pictures, jazz up the graphics etc, and i dont see why i should walk away from a site that ive paid a few grand into.

for whatever reason (lost in house moves etc), i have no copy of the agreement i signed with them, and after ringing them yesterday, it seems they dont have a copy either.

in a nutshell...
all the photos on my site are my work. the pictures are off my staff and customers.i asked for a predominantly purple theme to my site, and explained how i wanted it laid out.but the conversations with them were all over the phone, so i have little documentation to back up the layout bit. but they are claiming they own the copyright to my site (even though company 'a' set it up initially and all theyve done is tweek it.)
they continue to host my site, but i am loathe to pay through the nose to have pictures added, therefore my site will become old hat eventually.

to get an idea of costs, im usually charged £60 to add five pictures to my gallery. (if you dont know any better, you kinda accept this must be the going rate )

my site is www.cosmictattoo.com

the question is...

what can i do about this?
is there special voodoo used on my site that is 'unique' to this company?
am i being ripped off, or paying the going rate?

im pretty gutted about the whole thing, this website is important to me and my business, and want to keep it as it is.

any suggestions please folks, its really appreciated.
thank you

NotoriousREV

Doesn't look to me like there is anything particularly special or unique about the way they've written the site.

I can't really help with the legal side, although I'd be suprised if they really did own the copyright as they were commisioned by you in the first place.

In fact, some of there work is decidedly dodgy (try clicking on a picture in Firefox, it pops up a window that's too small and can't be resized to see anything useful)

lightning101

Its a very basic (from a programming point of view) site. It just has some simple rollovers and is basically a set of galleries, which are easiest thing to create in say dreamweaver.

I could put that site together in a day.

boxst

Hello

The images are definitely yours, the design they could argue is theirs unless you explicitly have written confirmation otherwise. I do web design for people occasionally, and the contract states that the site is theirs but they cannot resell it.

The site itself is very simple, and I too could knock up something similiar and allow you to change the pictures yourself in a day or so. So get a new design company, show that site to them, let them download all the images if you don't have them already and they will produce something for you.

Steve

King RA

Theres some good artwork on there, I may have to pop in next time I visit my nan!!

Jamo

iTrader: (23)

you paid several grand for that website? no **** they dont want you going anywhere else, there onto a really good thing! if you like it that much, take screen shots of each page at different points print it out, and take it to "c" web builder, as lightning101 said its a one day job, any luck they will make it look a bit better "no offence".

Jamo

lightning101

And the wildlife rollover link is incorrect, thats why it stays black and white.

lightning101

I could understand them if a lot of work had been put into like this one:

http://www.ascamon.com/

Its mainly down to fancy flash and coding and you can see what you get for your cash.

OllyK

There is so much fancy stuff going on, most people will get bored watching the page build up chunk by chunk and navigate away before it gets half way through. There was an article recently either BBC News or the Register - People make a decision on a web site in the first fractions of a second - intro pages and stuff that stops them seeing what they want immediately is bad.

lightning101

I'm not disputing that olly. I am disputing what he paid for the work that went in.

There is obviously a lot a effort made from a design and function point of view on the example I've shown.

It is way over the top but I can appreciate it from a graphics and content point of view.

It certainly wouldn't put me off, knowing a company was happy to invest the same time and effort into their web pages as they would into a practical project for myself.

Where that website would have been useless would be if information had to be entred and technical data sought, much like your property websites, then simple and fuctional is needed, but from a architectural, graphic and design company its spot on IMO.

lordlucan

Would be cheaper for someone else to copy the site for you. This time it can be re-built so you can load up your own pictures.

Get a price from DreamWeaver on here, his work is very good and reasonable.

J

dazdavies

iTrader: (22)

Hi Mate,

This sucks.

I'm a web designer and basically they are talking complete bollocks and ripping you off.

They should have provided you with a complete copy of the site.

Do you have any access at all to the site (ftp access)?

Your site doesnt look that complicated and can be easily replicated.
My advice f*ck these cowboys off and go with someone who tell you evreything upfront including on-going costs if there are any.

When I do sites for a client and the site is finished and everything has been paid ( I give a price at the start of the project and thats the final price i charge) I give them all the user names and passwords of the hosting that I have set up for them. That way the client has complete and utter control of the site themselves.

If you get stuck give me a shout i'd be pleased to help.

Daz

bren.wright

As others have said above you are being ripped off big time, they are onto a good thing and they know it, that's why they are coming out with the bull**** about not wanting other people to pinch there code. If anybody wanted to pinch their code it could be easily done anyway!

The overall site is very bad to be honest, I would cut all ties with them and move on. You should not be paying for silly things like having images uploaded, this can be all done by yourself with a decent back end system in place (it's not complex and is easy to use).

Speak to other local web designers and get some quotes for work, I am sure you will find you have been had by the company your currently using. If there are no decent local companies give me a shout and I can give you an idea of costs and show you what can be done.

SJ_Skyline

Just reinforcing what's been said above, your site is flat html with a little bit of (badly written) javascript. "special coding and programming that is unique to them" - I can articulate this far better - Bollocks!

I would say £200 tops to recreate a site like yours as-is and IRO £10-£15 month hosting with somone like Titanhosts.

You have paid for the work to be done to your site ergo you own it. If you want I'm sure someone with frontpage installed can download the entire web for you and you can say nuts to the existing host as you have a copy of the code and all imageary.


Some nice tattoos as well!!

Milamber

iTrader: (2)

Why is no-one asking what his contract stipulates?
Just a thought.......

TopBanana

As said above, you can download this entire site to disk and then host it elsewhere with no redesign fees - sod what their contract says, are they really going to sue you for it?

P1Fanatic

Erm cos neither he nor they have a copy of it.....

Simon.

BlkKnight

do you have FTP access to the site?

If you do juss grab the lot - if you don't this util is very good at making website images:

http://www.httrack.com/

/edit

I'm mirroring your site as we speak.

Send PM me your e-mail address and I'll send you the link for you to download it.

BlkKnight

mirroring done.

EP82

HTML and JavaScript, very voodoo!

I agree with everyone above!

BlkKnight

*cough*

http://www.lanse.co.uk/ct_temp/www.c....com/main.html

*cough*

Let me know when you've got the file I sent you & i'll delete this.

TopBanana

Oh, and while you're looking at the site - I'd ditch the intro page

philc

that site could be knocked together in Frontpage in a half day.

As others suggest; advise your host you no longer wish to continue, find another host for your domain and ask one of the guys on here to re-construct the site around your photos (and yes, lose the uninformative first page) - that way you can't be accused of stealing any intellectual property.

btw - it you are interested in salvaging the code, go to the 'View' menu when you dispay your site, select 'source' and then copy and paste to your home drive what is displayed....

RichB

HTTRack is good but not completely ideal...

It downloads the HTML of every page that is found through your site, what it (obviously to some) doesn't do is get all the admin stuff that they claim to have used for your site.

I wouldn't say this is complete bollox like some say here, some people have their own tools for content managing sites and they may only 'lease' that to you, you can own the database structure and content and the design and template files but it is not quite as clear cut as it's all yours...

My previous company worked like this and funnily enough, I've just written a whole set of tools for sites and am going through the exact same thought process, does the customer own the admin code?

I await further comments on this with interest...

If you are looking for people to do the work, you can PM me too. I'll quote you but I expect others will be cheaper

EP82

As far as i can see the website is flat html with a bit of JS for the image popups.

I doubt very much it has any sort of a backend, or is linked to a database. Obviously i could well be wrong.

The only thing people should be paying for when updating a website is any design you would like changing or mods to the site. Content, etc should all be managed by the end user.

Again if you would like a quote, to see some of my past work and to find out what i can offer you before any money has passed hands then drop me a PM.

BlkKnight

I've removed the site, but kept a copy. The original poster doesn't anwser PM's

I'll delete the backup tomorrow

bren.wright

Rich, regarding backend coding...

The thing is even if your backend is bespoke, it's already been done. There are that many content management systems out there, most of them free. I don't see why you would bother stopping people stealing the back end code.

This whole thread just shows that when ever you deal with the internet it should be treated as per any other business agreement and a contract should be drawn up of initial costs and any on-going costs. Hosting and domain purchases etc are so cheap now that the on-going costs should be next to nothing.

With a contract it helps protect you and the client, it lets the client know where they stand and any costs involved and helps protect you from being ripped off by the client, which does happen, all too often!

Scooby Roo

There is some point to checking the Agreement as it may have some mention to Intellectual Property Rights [these are basically who owns what when the work is done]. There is a distinct probability that once ya pays ya money the rights pass over to you but that can be changed by the Agreement. Demand a copy or a similar Agreement as most of the Clauses will be similar if not the same.

Roo

RichB

Ben ...even worse, the client is a group of solicitors.... lol.

Al Coholic

Shall we just spam the company for him?

Administrative Contact , Technical Contact :
Clues, Bevan **
bev@CLUES.CO.UK
44-46 Crouch Street
Colchester, Essex CO3 3RS, ** **
UK
Phone: +44 (1206) 763301
Fax: +44 (1206) 763302