What is Intellectual Property, really?

I had no idea that this question was the beginning of many more questions. Over the years of building websites the idea of intellectual property has come up numerous times. Whether by a client or in my own mind it has been something that I've never really been able to wrap my head around conclusively. Today, I had a couple of conversations that got me thinking about it all over again. Since I'm an internet junkie I quickly did some searches only to find that I'm not alone in this foggy ideal of intellectual property.

Here are some interesting links that I found in my searching:

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property
http://www.wipo.int/about-ip/en
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hcqhpLfgHpcIipb1rVGvAoa5BusAD9652OD01

One question that I get a lot is, "Who owns my domain name?" Clients always want to be assured that I am not going to run off with their web identity.

First off, my answer is, I don't know. But since that doesn't make any client feel more comfortable with giving their domains username and password over to me, I usually give the answer that I was given. The name that is listed on the WHOIS under the Registrant Contact is the owner of the domain. That makes sense to me.

At Webtoast Media we recommend to all of our clients to either let us register their domain names or transfer them to our registrant under our account. This is not to get some kind of dominance for the domain. But it is to make it easier for us and them. Many times our clients don't really understand the in's and out's of a domain name and domain registration. I don't really expect them to. We want our clients to focus on the mission of their organization, not spend countless hours researching basic internet protocol. That's our job. We are familiar with how we have things set up with our registrant. The last we need or want is to figure out some no name domain registrars non-user friendly interface. Secondly, we want to help protect our clients from scammers that try to take advantage of the fact that most people don't understand basic internet protocol. It just makes it easier on our clients to know that anything relating to their website is going to come from Webtoast Media.

I've had a client tell me to purchase a domain for them and then the next day tried to purchase it on their own. When they saw that it was taken they checked the WHOIS and saw that it was purchased by Webtoast Media. They then accused me of trying to steal their domain name! I reminded them that they told me to get it for them and explained that until I have all of their contact information (which was the next step) I would not be able to put their name as the Registrant Contact. I also explained that I already have lots of domains that I plan on using in the future. I would never steal a domain name and had no need of a domain name that included his name in the URL.

As a side note, back in the 90's people used to be cyber squatters. They have always been looked upon in a bad light. We at Webtoast Media like to play nice with the internet and all of his friends.

Another relating question that we get is, "Who owns my website?" This starts to get a little more undefined. First of all, let's remember that websites and domain names are just virtual. It's just data. It's just ones and zeros. There is not a physical place or an actual object to hold or grab or move or even steal. Next, we have to address what it means to "buy" a website. What is it that you are paying for? Of course we do know that the reason why you buy a website is because you don't have the knowledge, skills, tools or time to do it yourself. When you buy a website from Webtoast Media you are getting a service. In most cases the cost is derived from the amount of time it takes us write the code, draw the graphics and build the databases. We have the skills and the tools to do it and you are simply buying our time. For the most part websites are disposable. No one really wants to keep an old website. Generally websites will either evolve or be completely rebuilt. In either case the client never wants any of the old files. Technology is quickly changing and the web is changing with it. Keeping an old website would be like keeping an eight track without an eight track player. Or keeping an analog television after June 12, 2009. So what about a new website or current website? Just like domain names we advise our clients to allow us to host their websites on our servers so that we can keep everything running properly and we know that everything is compliant and works properly. It also makes things simpler for our clients in that they know that everything web related is with Webtoast Media. But, what happens if a client wants to take the website that they bought and host it somewhere else? We thought of that. All rendered pages and data is yours. You can save the pages from your browser or there is software to extract rendered pages as well. We will extract that data from the databases and email it to you or put it on disk. All code and sources files and of course The Dashboard are all property of Webtoast Media. Since every website we build is custom we have no need of the way your site looks and we have no need of your data. I should mention that we have only had one client leave us and take their site with them.

What about CD Artwork and Logos? When you hire Webtoast Media to create graphics for you we send you every file type that you need to print the artwork. We send it to you in varying formats and sizes. However, we do not give you the source files or the layered image files. We think that stuff if private. Perhaps we're just stuck up. So, I guess that's what we consider intellectual property.