PeakLeadsWebsite ownership
Who owns your website? The domain, hosting and logins to get in writing
Who owns your website depends on whose name each part is in. A website is a domain name, a hosting account, the site's files and logins, the words and photos, and the Google accounts tied to it, and each can sit with a different person. Paying for the build does not, on its own, put most of them in your name. In South Africa, an assignment of copyright has no effect unless it is in writing and signed by or on behalf of the person assigning it.
You can check most of this today without paying anyone. This post covers who holds each part, how to check, what to get in writing before a build, and what to do when an old web designer goes quiet. The legal points are general information, not advice.
Who owns your domain name, and how do you check?
The registrant: the person or business the domain is registered to. Strictly, the registry's policies say a domain name cannot be owned, only used while it is renewed. Your website and email addresses both depend on the domain, so check it first.
For .co.za names the registry is the ZA Registry Consortium (ZARC), and you deal with it through an accredited registrar. To see where yours stands:
- Type your domain into the .co.za registry's WHOIS lookup. It shows the registrar and the expiry date, and sometimes the organisation the domain is registered to, but no personal contact details.
- Log in to your account at that registrar and open the registrant details. You want your business's name there and an email address you control. No login? Phone the registrar and ask what they need to confirm you are the registrant.
- Note the expiry date and whose card pays the renewal.
The email address on the record matters as much as the name. The registry sends notices about changes to the domain to that address, and if someone asks to move the domain to another registrar, the registrant is asked to approve it. If the address is your web designer's, so are those emails.
Say you are an electrician in Durbanville and the registrant is your designer's company. As far as the registry is concerned, the domain is theirs to manage.
Who holds the hosting account and the site's logins?
Whoever opened the hosting account, and the hosting company will normally deal only with them. That account holds your site's files and database, so ask your designer whose name it is in and whose card pays for it.
Then check the site. You should have your own administrator login, under your own email address, not a password shared with the designer. If you have never seen your site's admin area, ask for access now, while everyone is on good terms.
Paid themes and plugins come with licences in the name of whoever bought them, so ask for a list. Ask for a full backup too, files and database, and keep it somewhere other than that hosting account. If the site is on a website builder, ask whether it can be exported, because not every platform allows it.
Who owns the words, photos and design?
Not necessarily you, even though you paid. What follows is general information, not legal advice.
The Copyright Act 98 of 1978 starts with whoever made the work: copyright belongs first to the author (section 21). Words you wrote and photos you took begin as yours, and handing them to a designer does not change that. There are exceptions. Copyright in work your employees make in the course of their jobs belongs to the business. So does copyright in photographs you commission and pay for. In both cases an agreement can say otherwise. For computer programs, the Act treats the author as whoever exercised control over making the program. How that applies to your site's code is a question for an attorney.
What is not in doubt is section 22(3): "No assignment of copyright ... shall have effect unless it is in writing signed by or on behalf of the assignor". So if the copyright in your site's design and words is to pass from your designer to you, it has to be in a document signed by them or on their behalf. A promise on the phone does not do it. Nor does paying the invoice on its own.
Who controls your Google accounts and your email?
Whoever set them up, unless they have added you properly since.
Your Google Business Profile matters most. It can have several owners but only one primary owner, and only the primary owner can pass that role on. Managers can do most of the daily work but cannot add or remove people or remove the profile. In the profile's settings, under People and access, check that the primary owner is a Google account your business controls. A designer who needs access can be a manager. What the profile can and cannot do is covered in do you still need a website if you have a Google Business Profile.
In Search Console, owners have full control, including adding and removing users. Under Settings, then Users and permissions, your own account should be an owner. Your analytics account should belong to your business too.
Then email. If the addresses on your domain run on the designer's hosting account, whoever holds that account holds your inbox. If your other logins all send password resets to that inbox, losing it can lock you out of everything at once. Ad accounts follow the same rule: in your business's name, with the agency added as a user.
What happens to a rented website when you stop paying?
It stays with the provider. That is the model: a site that comes with a monthly fee, often with little to pay upfront, built and hosted on the provider's system. Stop paying and the site comes down, and the design and code do not go with you. Whether the domain goes with you depends on whose name it is registered in.
There is nothing dishonest about that in itself. A rented site can suit a new business that wants to be online without a big bill on day one. Trouble starts when an owner thinks they bought what they were renting. Before you sign, ask what you keep if you stop paying and whose name the domain is in. Ask whether you can buy the site out, what that would include and how much notice each side must give.
What should a website ownership agreement cover?
Get these in writing before work starts, whoever builds your website, us included.
- The domain registered in your business's name, with your email address on the registrant record.
- Hosting in your name. If the designer hosts it, a written commitment to hand over a full copy of the files and database when you leave.
- Your own administrator login from the start.
- A signed assignment to your business of the copyright in the design, code, words and photos made for you, effective once you have paid. Have an attorney check the wording and how it is signed.
- Anything licensed rather than owned, such as themes, plugins, fonts and stock photos, with whose name each licence is in.
- Business Profile, Search Console, analytics and ad accounts owned by your business. The designer gets added as a manager or user.
- What any monthly fee pays for, and what you keep if you stop paying.
- One handover document at the end with every login, account and renewal date.
What if your web designer will not give you access?
Start with the domain. A site can be rebuilt, but a domain that lapses, or stays in someone else's name, takes your web address and email addresses with it. If it were our business, this is the order we would go in.
- Check the expiry date. If it is close, sort out the renewal first. A .co.za domain that is not renewed is eventually deleted, and then anyone can register it.
- If the domain is registered to your business, go to the registrar shown in the lookup, prove who you are and get your own login. You can then move it to a registrar where the account is in your name.
- If it is registered to the designer, email them asking for the registrant to be changed to your business. List everything else in the same email (files and database, admin login, licence details, Google access) and give a date. Email beats a WhatsApp voice note, because it leaves a written record.
- For your Business Profile, use Google's request ownership process. If the current owner does not respond in time, you may be able to claim the profile yourself. Service-area businesses with no shopfront, as many trades are, go through Google's support team instead.
- Once you control the domain, you can verify yourself as a Search Console owner and remove the old owner's verification tokens. Google's Search Console help has the steps.
Bring in an attorney if the designer holds the domain and will not transfer it, claims the copyright and wants paying to release it, or if money is in dispute. For .co.za names there is also a formal dispute process, with mediation through ZADNA, the .za Domain Name Authority, and adjudication through accredited providers. Your attorney can tell you whether your case fits.
Where does Peak Leads stand on ownership?
The finished site is yours outright, not rented from us for as long as you keep paying. Ask us every question on the checklist above before you sign, as you would anyone else.
There is no upfront payment on the website build, and if you are not happy you do not pay. Builds are quoted on the free call, once we know how many services and areas you need.
What should you do this week?
Look your domain up, then check the registrant details with your registrar. Try to log in to everything else this post mentions and list what you cannot get into. Keep every login and renewal date somewhere only you can open, and point each account's recovery email at an address that is yours.
Then send your designer one email asking for whatever is missing. If that gets nowhere, you will know exactly what to take to an attorney.
Commissioning a new site? Put the checklist into the agreement before work starts.