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It is a real shock to find yourself breaking criminal law through the purchase of something as basic as a website. Most of us just do not realise that the illustrations and photographs on our website might belong to someone else. Unless you hold a licence you might get a bill for several thousand pounds, one I saw this week for a very normal websites was over £4,000 ($6,500) in past license royalties and at least as much for future use of the same pictures.e7CFree Articles Directory | Hostsee.com How does this work? Well, the suppliers of cheap websites are usually one man bands or small businesses. Their aim is simple, to get a good hourly rate for something that looks nice and does a basic job. The up-side is that they are very cheap. The downside is that they rarely carry indemnity insurance and do not necessarily understand all of the laws relating to websites and copyright. Just like music, photographs are produced by an artist and they need to be paid. Some display licence free work, but most offer their work for use under licence. If the designer of your website simply found a picture he liked, perhaps after searching Google Images, and used it chances are the photographer expected to be paid.e7CFree Articles Directory | Hostsee.com It is all too easy to copy and use pictures from searches, it does not even feel wrong, but it is theft. At the point you took delivery of your website containing stolen pictures and published it on line you broke the law. When the licensing agent of the image rights owner then asks you for money you can do only one thing, pay. You can try going after the supplier of your website but the chances are you will find the contract there is for design services only, no contract exists for legal services or advice. These are not the only hidden costs of a cheap website. Most low cost websites need significant remedial work in the coding to make them search engine friendly. Accordingly, there are the dual problems of illegality and being almost impossible to find. The reason you wanted a website is to be seen by as big an audience as possible to promote your business and get your message across.e7CFree Articles Directory | Hostsee.com The next thing you know, your website is hosted on a server with dozens of other sites some of which are used for spamming. If that happens your website and your associated email is liable to get blacklisted too. The association of your address through the same server with a bad practice address is enough to get you a bad name. Not unlike taking a flat in a dodgy block of flats where several criminal families live and the police are always round dealing with antisocial behaviour. If that is all you can afford you have no choice, but choosing to live there when you can afford not to. I don't think so.e7CFree Articles Directory | Hostsee.com Getting away from your cheap deal might not be easy either. Whilst most of the suppliers are just naive, some are a bit sharp too. Many times I have found that the website supplier has registered the client domain name (www.yourname.com) for them and then wants the client to pay a big fee to get their own name back so that they can transfer to a higher quality host. Be sure to have ownership over your own domain name, either by registering yourself or contracting that it is yours under management.e7CFree Articles Directory | Hostsee.com Buying a website is like buying any other important service or equipment. You must begin by knowing what you need. The chances are, buying a website is unfamiliar and a bit frightening. I provide a Free, no strings attached 'How To Buy A Website Guide' that has a simple 10 point check list you can use before you ask for a quote from shortlisted suppliers. You'll find the free guide on the blogs and articles page of my website.e7CFree Articles Directory | Hostsee.com Despite the fact that a website is a 'must have' asset for almost every business, my only plea to you is that you find out what to buy before you spend any money at all.e7CFree Articles Directory | Hostsee.com My advice, buyer beware. The supply of design, build and host of a website requires years of experience and several professional disciplines including law. Who would ask a general labourer to build a house, a butcher to perform surgery, or perhaps a freelance writer to draw up a contract. Yet, your most important business communication tool can be built by a bloke who can design a bit and write some simple html code. Well not for my businesses thank you.e7CFree Articles Directory | Hostsee.com
About the author Tim Meadows-Smith is an experienced non-executive chairman, director and business advisor, from a classical sales and marketing background gained with famous global FMCG brand owners. He works with businesses internationally in the hospitality, FMCG, logistics, service and technology sectors. He speaks about internet marketing in a way business people can understand.e7CFree Articles Directory | Hostsee.com
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