The Four Most Common Mistakes Dentists Make When Hiring a Website Developer

This is a guest post from our friend Kim Grimsley, an intellectual property attorney at Oliver & Grimsley.

We meet a lot of clients that fail to obtain a written agreement, or blindly sign the form provided by the developer - and when a dispute arises, only too late realize the problems created by that lack of diligence.  This post addresses critical provisions in a website development agreement.

First, you want to make sure you will own the material and content created by the developer.  Thus, you want a provision in the agreement (which must be in writing) that recognizes that the developer’s work for you is considered a “work made for hire” and you want a copyright and intellectual property assignment as well.  These clauses ensure that, although the developer is not your employee, you are the owner of the website materials and intellectual property rights.  You do not want to find that your website designer created something unique for you only to discover the same unique layout on another website.  Many businesses are surprised to learn that in the absence of this statement in a written agreement, an independent contractor (in this case the website developer) typically is the owner of work they create, and the business at most would be a licensee of the material. This means you don’t own the work; rather, you only have permission to use it. 

Second, you want to have a provision in the contract that states that the work on the website is the website developer’s original work and/or that the developer has the necessary permission/licenses from the owners to use the work on your site.  For instance, the website developer may place photographs on your website – you want the developer to represent that the developer has the right to use those photographs on your website (i.e. either the developer took the photos or it has the permission to use them).  If the developer uses photographs owned by a third party on your website without the third party’s permission, the third party could claim you are infringing on their copyright by displaying their work on your website without their permission, and would demand you cease use of the photos and may demand damages as well.  Thus, have your website developer represent the work is original or that he has permissions to use all work on your website.

Third, make sure to have an indemnification provision in your agreement.  This provision should provide that the developer will indemnify you in the event you incur damages or a loss due to a third party claim that you are infringing their intellectual property rights – where they claim the work on your website is actually their material.  For example, a business thinks the graphics on its site are original, however, it receives a cease and desist letter from a third party alleging that its use of the works on its website without the third party’s authorization is copyright infringement and demands damages.  Under Copyright Law, if the third party is the owner of a registered copyright in the work, the business as an unauthorized user could be subject to statutory damages ranging from $700 to $30,000 for unintentional infringement, and up to $150,000 for willful infringement. Thus, if material placed on your website by your developer is subject to a claim or legal action for infringement, you want your developer to indemnify you for these actions since you are relying on their knowledge, creativity and skill in developing and designing your website.

Finally, it is important that you make sure that the developer periodically delivers all source codes and native files to you, and that you control all passwords and access to critical website assets, such as the domain registration.  You want to make sure that such files and access rights cannot be withheld in the event of a dispute.  Thus, if a dispute arises, the developer's sole remedy should be money damages.  You should not be prevented from transferring the work done (to the point of a dispute) to a new developer, so you can finish your site, and deal with the dispute separately.  

For more information, please contact Kim Grimsley at Oliver & Grimsley, LLC -  kim@olivergrimsley.com 

Are Those Images on Your Dental Website Really Yours?

One of our dental clients received a letter recently from Getty Images demanding a settlement payment for using Getty's images without a valid license.

I was asked if it was legitimate.

Yes, it is.

Call it what you like, scam, extortion, mean spirited, etc…

It doesn't matter - the law is on Getty’s side.

They have all the documentation and facts. Without a valid, up-to-date license to use the images on your site, you will lose in court.

Here is a paragraph from WomenInBusiness on About.com talking about how Getty finds you: 


Getty uses automated robots that crawl the Internet looking for its images. Getty's tools are so sophisticated that if you use even a part of their images in a logo, banner, or button, they can recognize an unlicensed image. Their crawlers can locate images that have been altered, inverted, flipped or turned upside down, regardless of what you rename the image file.

When a Getty image is found, it is compared to their license database. If there is no match between the image and the site where it is found, they send a snap shot of the image(s) found on your site, the name of the image (as they sell it) and demand a huge sum of money for copyright infringement.

The minimum fine is $1,500 plus you pay all court and legal costs.

The maximum fine is $150,000 and you pay for everyone’s legal fees and court costs.

This is per occurrence.

If you hired a web firm to build your site and you did not get warranties/indemnification from them that all the content was original/unique/legally obtained, you are the one who is liable.

Again, hate it or love it (if you are Getty) this is the law.

From what I have read, you can negotiate them down slightly in the fines.

I've also read that many other license holders of images besides Getty are getting into the game, because anyone can go to Google images and right click copy/paste almost anything. And the onus is on you to find the owner of the image, not on them to provide it for you.

What can you do?

1.     Check and see if you have up-to-date valid license agreements for all of the images on your website (and any printed collateral material).

2.     If you don’t, remove the pictures and replace with legally obtained pictures.

3.     Ask you web design firm (if you outsourced this) for copies of all the licenses for content/images.

4.     We hire professional photographers to take pictures of our offices, staff and client’s offices. We pay between $175 - $600 for a full shoot including post production editing. We also retain the full legal rights of usage of these images (and trust me, if someone stole them and tried to pass them off as their own, they would get a letter from me).

How can you tell if you have images on your website that are used elsewhere?

1.     Go to www.google.com

2.     Select Images

3.     In the right hand portion of the search bar is a camera icon, click on it

4.     Go to an image on your website and right click on it

5.     Select copy image url

6.     Paste that into the Google Image camera icon search bar

Is Your Dental Website Getting Results?

Here is a guest post from +Mike Pedersen.

I'm amazed at the hundreds of dental websites I have looked at that are difficult to navigate, make me work to take action, and are basically wasting air space on the Internet.

If you have a website already, I want you to really take a look at it EVERY page, and ask yourself this question. "What's the goal of this page, and am I making it easy for visitors to take action?"

When you take this approach to your dental website, you'll have an awakening. You'll soon realize there is a ton of room for improvement, which is a good thing, as it means with some changes you'll get more responses.

What Is Your Main Goal?

If you're like the dental clients I work with, you want your phone ringing. If so, does your website make it easy for a visitor to contact your office?

You may think it is, but I'll bet you it's not. You see... most of the dental sites I review do not have a prominent phone number. And worse off, many pages don't have it at all. This makes your dental site a complete waste.

With any marketing, you are paying to get more patients, and that is the same goal of your dental website.

The Second Goal Is...

When someone is looking for a dentist, they want to know how to contact you (phone number), and where are you located (address and map).

With that in mind, you MUST have a map on your dental website. There's no negotiating on this one. If you don't make it easy for visitor to see where you're located, you're dead in the water. Toast!

I would say of the dental websites I review, 80% of them do not have a map.

If you don't, I want you to contact your webmaster right now and get a map put on your homepage ASAP! Don't put this off. Get it up there and you'll see a boost in the number of phone calls you get.

So, if and when you decide to update/redesign your dental website, don't go for pretty, go for functional. Make it easy for people to call you and find out where you're located. Do this and your practice will prosper.

I hope this article has opened your eyes to what your website could accomplish.

Author Resource:

+Mike Pedersen is an Internet Marketing Strategy Consultant for dentists. His firm will also redesign your dental website if you are looking for that.

For more information, please contact info@dentalcpas.com

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