Legal Question in Business Law in Georgia

Reformatting of my original question.
Sorry about that guys. I am rewritting this question. I was hired by a company just starting out to design a website for them. I was very helpful, and only did it for $300 to help them out. I built them a very nice basic site. Keep in mind I usually work for anywhere from $25 or more an hour, but the lady said they had a small budget and needed a site to get going, so i said i would do t for $300 and take a loss to help them. As the site went on, she made many changes, and added things to where I had to redesign a lot. After it was finished, she paid the $300, and then asked me to make some massive changes, some that couldn't even be done. I told her I would not do it until she paid regular price for it, and that i had already been nice and gave her an expensive site for very cheap. She then proceeded to try through paypal to get the $300 paid for it back, but paypal stood up for me and didn't give it to her. So she took my company name from the link at the bottom of the site. its my code and my design, so what legally can I do to have it put back on the site or to take the site down period? There was no contract, I was nice , but I have every email we did. I also have the files showing I designed it.

Asked on 12/29/07, 4:29 pm

2 Answers from Attorneys

Charles W. Field Charles W. Field, Attorney at Law

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Re: Reformatting of my original question.

That's better.

Since I don't handle legal matters in your field on a regular basis, I am going to take a shot at giving you an answer based on general legal principals.

First, there is always a contract, or at least an agreement. Whether it is legally enforceable is another matter. Here, you agreed to do certain things for $300.00. You state that "its my code and my design". I thought "code", i.e., HTML, if that is what it was, is a general tool available to anyone. So, it appears that you used a generic tool to incorporate your design into a website. Then you turned it over to her and she had whatever access is needed to remove your company name. Your mistake. If it is even possible, she should never have had such access; if that is not possible, you should have at least put in an email that no matter what, your identifying stuff would remain on the site. A parallel would be a sign that you got a sign-maker to make for you. Unless you had some specific agreement, such as to keep "Joe Blow Signs, www.joeblowsigns.com" on the sign, once it is turned over to you, you can do whatever you want with it.

Answered on 12/29/07, 4:56 pm

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