How do I protect code from my clients?

Protecting pages before payment....contracts?

[unique_geek]

During the design process how do I show clients their web pages online,
whilst reducing the risk of the client stealing the code?

Is there anyway of coding for this?

I've looked at HTML Encryption, but these seem to only protect from people taking portions of code
and from what I hear are only a defence against a layman. Someone could still download the site and display the encrypted pages.

Or is the only option to get the client to sign a contract and trust the good will of the client?

Any thoughts?

[balinor]

A good contract is surely the way to avoid this problem, and a significant deposit as well. Just state in the contract that all content is property of your company until final payment is made. If you are still worried about it, you can take the extreme route of designing the major pages of the site in .jpg format and don't hard-code them until you get 75% of the payment or so. I wouldn't recommend this route, as it will take a lot of extra work, especially for a large site.

[victor]

Surely there is more to the site than just the visible HTML / JS / CSS code?

What about the database, the CGIs etc?

After all, I could "steal the code" for google.com in a mouse click. But I don't get anything useful for my effort: just some poorly validated HTML.

If your site designs are of the "what you see is all there is" type, then you do have a business risk that not many designers (I'd guess) share.

[unique_geek]

Cheers Balinor,

I suppose I could do screen dumps of the hard-coded site and post them as .jpgs with image maps for links..?

Are there any 'international' contracts for web designers that I could find on-line?

[unique_geek]

Victor,
The designs are aimed at visual artists.....so portfolio sites, which would probably be minimal in server-side scripting.

[rogerd]

I've used offshore subs for design work and it's pretty common to approve a design in JPG form (one flat image). Work submitted on spec is often done this way. Template vendors often take the combined step of using a single image to show the template, and then watermark it and/or display it in a size/resolution that makes it unlikely to be ripped off.

Clearly, this only goes so far - if a client wants to see how site features work, e.g., drop-down menus, hover effects, etc., you'll have to expose a working version.

[phoenix09]

You can also generate the site in pdf format using acrobat, and then lock the format to prevent opening it in any way except for viewing. This keeps the links active and working.

Of course if it's a programmed site this won't work, but it works I guess for static html sites.

[victor]

In my experience, visual artists want all sorts of micro-management control over their sites:

Change the background color (normally by one hex point) nineteen times a day

Rotate images so the front-page shows a different (or possibily random) set each day

Constantly swapping the navigation bars from top to side to other side.

Happy to spend hours photoshopping tiny palette changes on one image, and then wanting the whole palette of the page for that image (and that page alone) tweaked.

oscillating between whether the thumbnails look best 5x7 or 6x4.

If you were doing a site for an artist as a personal favor, these things will drive you mad (I know from experience; luckily I had a good doctor :) )

But offer those sorts of features in a control panel and you'll have a site-design template that no one can steal, and that artists may bite your hand off to get at.

[unique_geek]

Phoneix...thats sounds interesting, i'll give it a go....bit more professional than screen dumps!

Victor, I can see you've dealt with artists before, I know how demanding (and vague) they can be....but that is a very interesting idea that I hadn't really considered.....putting the client in control. One that deserves a lot more thought.Thanks :-)