Should designer own copyright?

[raymor]

It's a negotiable point, of course, but I don't think links back are too common, particularly
in this industry, where the webmasters know where to find a dozen other designers who
won't insist on a link back. Legally, you don't own the work, you only have limited license,
so the creator can put in any limitations they want and you can either agree to their license
or not. As noted by others, the exception is a "work made for hire" - a design done by an
actual employee as opposed to an independent contractor. The person is an employee is
the employer controls when and how they work, or can do so. If you can tell the person to
work from 9-5 and use a text editor to create the design, they are an employee. If you only
agree on what the final product should be, but not exactly how and when it's made, that's
an independent contractor. That's the main factor deciding employee versus contractor.
Other considerations include who owns the facility and equipment. If you come into my office
and use a computer I purchased to do work for me, you're probably an employee. If you
work in your own office using a computer you own, you're probably an independent contractor.
The other possibility for a "work for hire" is when the work is part of a larger whole, such as
someone doing just graphics for your site, where there is some writing evidencing that both
parties intended it to be a work for hire.

Originally Posted by EmporerEJ

While I agree with you....your real world examples don't fly. Look at the car in front of you in traffic. Most of them have "shitty dealer Chevrolet" or something different on the back panel, above the bumper.

And most house builders, carpenters, tradesmen, etc put a professional sign in your yard while they are doing work on your house. And put your house in their photo album to show others.

You can remove that license plate frame or other thing that has the dealer's name on it, because
you own the car. Similarly you can remove a sign from your yard, unless you agreed to keep it
there for a certain period of time, because you own your yard. You do not generally own your
site design, but only license it, unless the you and the designer agree otherwise.

Let me throw out some related examples from our work, where people license a copy of
Strongbox or Throttlebox. At the bottom of the log in page, in small text, we have "protected
by Strongbox", which is linked, but we specifically tell people that they can edit that page
any way they want. If we didn't tell them they could, the default under the law is that they can
make no modifications other than whatever is truly required to use the system in the normal way.
That's what a lot of software companies do and at least one "competitor" encrypts their files
to prevent you from making any modifications or adjustments to fit your needs. We also allow
modifications to the configuration file, and via the plug in mechanism, because these are
designed to allow modifications without affecting security in an unexpected way. Apart from
the three ways we've set up for you to customize Strongbox, making random changes
to the code could effect security, perhaps in subtle ways that you wouldn't realize, so we
request that you consult with us about any other changes so we can advise you regarding
security and regarding the best way to accomplish your goal.

Because you only license software and don't own it, we could legally prevent all changes
and encrypt the scripts like some people do. We feel, though, that because you bought the system in order to USE it, we should allow whatever changes you need, and we make that
as easy as possible to do in tidy way via our custom_subs file, which is a plug-in type interface.
At the same time, it's important to us to protect the reputation of Strongbox as being secure,
so we want to talk to you before you make changes that could effect that and we've always
approved people's changes after making any needed security improvements.