Max_M - 11:55 am on Nov 9, 2005 (gmt 0)

Just wondering if anyone has any experience with such issue and can advise on the legal ramifications.

Story as follow:

Late 2002 firm A contacted us and requested a web site to be designed, images taken, edited and published. Site was ready a month later and published online.

Firm B (which seems to be having some working relations with firm A - agent like) simply copied the entire site a few months later (including all the images that we originaly created for firm A) and published it under their own domain name while carefully removing the name of firm A from all pages and replacing it with their own commercial name (which is totally different - not an offshoot of firm A. It is a completely different company, trading under a different name and in a different state.)

I stumbled across firm B's site today and freaked out to find that they simply copied all images and content and created a site for themselves.

Question asked, what are the legal remifications?
Who really owns the copyrights for the images and site design after you are contracted to create and publish a web site?. Can other parties (lets assume with working relationship with the original ordering firm) simply copy your hard work and create a site for themselves without paying a cent (to you the original site and image(s) creator)?

Your help is much appreciated.

p.S.
I’ve sent a letter to firm B notifying them of a copyright infringement and that the content and images were originally licensed to firm A ONLY. However, I also advised them that a separate license for their site can be arranged. (otherwise, to remove all images within 72 hours).

P.P.S.
We are still in working reletionships with firm A and currently in the process of creating for them a brand new site.

Do you think I did the right thing?

[edited by: Max_M at 12:00 pm (utc) on Nov. 9, 2005]