Who owns the website a designer built for you?
Paying for a website does not, by itself, make you the owner of its design, code and custom images. Under U.S. copyright, the person who creates a work is ordinarily its author and owner, and an outside designer is usually not your employee. A written agreement that assigns the work to your business settles the question. The text and photos you supplied remain yours, and the domain name is a separate matter. This is a plain summary, not legal advice.
What copyright covers on a website
The U.S. Copyright Office says that "The original authorship appearing on a website may be protected by copyright", and names writings, artwork and photographs as examples. So the parts of a site that someone can own include the design, the code the designer wrote, the page text and the images.
The same FAQ says plainly that "Copyright law does not protect domain names". Control of the domain is about who is recorded as its holder at the registrar, which the related answer on who should own your domain name covers.
The default rule, and the exception
In its circular on works made for hire, the Copyright Office explains that ordinarily the author of a work is the person who actually created it. The exception is a work made for hire: the hiring party is treated as the author and copyright owner when the work was created by an employee as part of the employee's regular duties, or when certain kinds of commissioned works are covered by an express written agreement signed by both sides.
An independent web designer or agency is usually not your employee. And the circular lists only nine kinds of commissioned works that can qualify, such as translations, tests, atlases and contributions to collective works, and states that a work that fails any of the requirements is not a work made for hire. A small business website does not fit that list neatly, so the safe assumption is that the designer keeps the copyright unless a contract says otherwise. That is the agency's guidance on how the rule works, not a ruling on any particular contract. This is a plain summary, not legal advice.
What stays yours no matter what
The text you wrote, the photos you took and the logo you brought to the project were yours before the designer touched them, and hiring a designer does not change that. A designer who assembled your material into a site may own the arrangement and the code they created, not your underlying words and pictures.
What to do about it
- Before a project starts, put ownership in the contract: the design, code and images are assigned to your business on final payment.
- If the site is already live and the contract is silent, ask the designer for a short written assignment now, while the relationship is good.
- Keep your own copies of everything you supplied, and ask for the finished files at handover.
- Make sure the domain, hosting and platform accounts are in your business's name, whoever built the site.
Sources
- U.S. Copyright Office, "Works Made for Hire" (Circular 30, revised 08/2024)
- U.S. Copyright Office, "What Does Copyright Protect? (FAQ)"
Related answers
- Who should own your business's domain name?
- What should a website design contract include?
- How do you switch marketing agencies without losing your website or leads?
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