How do I check who owns my dental practice domain?

A WHOIS lookup used to answer this, but since ICANN's Registration Data Policy took full effect in August 2025, the registrant is usually shown as REDACTED. What a lookup still tells you is which registrar holds the domain. The real test is simpler: can you log into that registrar account yourself, with your own email, and see the domain? If you can't, you don't control it.

If I paid for my website, do I own the copyright?

Not automatically. Under 17 U.S.C. §201(a) copyright vests initially in the author — the person who made it — and §204(a) says a transfer isn't valid unless it's in a signed writing. Paying an invoice is not a transfer. The Supreme Court settled a version of this in 1989: a commissioned sculpture, fully paid for, and the sculptor kept the copyright because nobody had written anything down.

Does a "work made for hire" clause in my contract transfer ownership?

Maybe not, and this surprises people. The Copyright Office's Circular 30 sets out that commissioned work only qualifies as work made for hire if it falls into one of nine specific categories and there's a signed agreement saying so. Websites, logos, and photographs are not among the nine listed categories. Well-drafted contracts include a separate present assignment clause for this reason. Have a lawyer read yours.

Can a web vendor hold my domain hostage over an unpaid invoice?

They shouldn't, and courts have taken a dim view of it. In DSPT International v. Nahum the Ninth Circuit held it is bad faith to hold a domain name for ransom, and affirmed $152,000 in damages — noting it didn't matter whether the money was actually owed. Separately, ICANN's Transfer Policy says a registrar must not withhold an auth code solely because of a payment dispute.

What should I ask a dental website vendor before signing?

Three questions cover most of it: whose registrar account is the domain in, does the contract contain a present assignment of copyright rather than only work-for-hire language, and what exactly do I take with me if I leave — domain, content, design, code, working files, photos? Then read the auto-renewal clause. The ADA recommends having your attorney review any website contract, and that's good advice.

Do You Actually Own Your Dental Website?

Probably not all of it. “Owning your website” is really five separate things — the domain, the content, the design and code, the accounts, and the data — and most practices own two of them without realizing the other three belong to someone else. The good news is that checking takes about twenty minutes, and US copyright law is more on your side than most vendor contracts imply.

A necessary caveat up front: I build websites, I’m not a lawyer, and nothing here is legal advice. I’ve cited the actual statutes and policies so you can read them yourself, and I’ll flag clearly where you need an actual attorney.

TL;DR

Ownership is five things, not one. Domain, content, design/code, Google accounts, and lead data. They live in different places and transfer differently.
WHOIS no longer answers the domain question. Since August 2025, registrant details are usually redacted. The real test is whether you can log into the registrar account.
Paying for work doesn’t transfer copyright. A signed writing does. That’s 17 U.S.C. §204(a).
“Work made for hire” may not cover a website. The Copyright Office lists nine categories for commissioned work, and websites aren’t among them.
Real dental contracts carve out more than you’d expect — one publicly posted agreement keeps ownership of the design, the raw video, and the ad creative.
Sequence matters when you leave. Transfer registrars before changing the registrant, or you trigger a 60-day lock.

The five things

Practices tend to think of the website as one object. It isn’t. Here’s what actually has to come with you:

Asset	Where it lives	Common problem
Domain name	A registrar account	Registered in the vendor's account
Content (words, photos)	Your CMS	Stock licenses don't transfer
Design and code	The vendor's platform	Proprietary; not exportable
Google Business Profile, Analytics, Ads	Google accounts	Vendor is the primary owner
Lead and form data	The vendor's system	Short export window after cancellation

You can own the domain and the words and still have nothing you can take anywhere. That’s the situation most template-platform practices are in, and I wrote about how that plays out in custom vs template dental websites.

The ADA is blunt about it, and worth quoting because it’s the ADA saying it rather than a vendor: make sure you own your website, including everything from the domain name to the content and the code. Some practices that moved to a new vendor have had to start from scratch.

The domain: who is actually on it?

Start here, because it’s the asset that takes your email down with it if it goes wrong.

The old advice was “run a WHOIS lookup.” That advice is now mostly useless. ICANN’s Registration Data Policy became fully effective on 21 August 2025, and public WHOIS records now typically show REDACTED where the registrant used to be. What a lookup still gives you is the registrar — which company holds the registration — plus creation and expiry dates and nameservers.

So the practical test isn’t WHOIS. It’s this: can you log into the registrar account yourself, with your own email address, and see the domain listed? If the answer involves emailing your marketing company, you don’t control your domain, whatever anyone has told you.

A related point that trips people up: being listed as the “administrative contact” is not ownership. Under ICANN’s Transfer Policy, the Registered Name Holder is the only party with authority to approve a transfer. Admin and technical contacts are notification roles. ICANN’s own consumer-facing page still uses older language on this, which doesn’t help.

What the law actually says

This is the part almost no article in dental marketing bothers to get right, so here it is with citations.

Copyright starts with the creator. 17 U.S.C. §201(a): copyright in a work vests initially in the author. Not in whoever paid for it.

Transfers must be written and signed. 17 U.S.C. §204(a): a transfer of copyright ownership is not valid unless there’s a written instrument signed by the owner of the rights conveyed. An invoice marked PAID is not a transfer.

The Supreme Court dealt with this in Community for Creative Non-Violence v. Reid (1989). An organization commissioned a sculpture, paid for it, and never discussed copyright. The Court held the sculptor was an independent contractor, so the default rule applied and he kept the copyright. Same logic applies to a website.

“Work made for hire” is narrower than people think. The Copyright Office’s Circular 30 spells out two paths: work by an employee within the scope of employment, or work specially commissioned that falls into one of nine enumerated categories — contribution to a collective work, part of an audiovisual work, a translation, a supplementary work, a compilation, an instructional text, a test, answer material for a test, or an atlas — and covered by a signed agreement saying it’s a work made for hire. Circular 30 states that if a work fails any of these requirements, it is not a work made for hire.

Websites, logos, and photographs don’t appear on that list of nine. Whether a particular website could be squeezed into one of those categories is a legal question I’m not qualified to answer, and the Copyright Office doesn’t address websites by name. But it’s the reason careful contracts don’t rely on work-for-hire language alone — they add a present assignment (“Vendor hereby irrevocably assigns to Client all right, title and interest…”). If your contract says only “work made for hire,” have a lawyer tell you what it actually accomplished.

If you’re not sure what shape your current setup is in, the free visibility audit includes a look at who’s on your domain and what platform you’re locked into. I’ll tell you what I find whether or not you ever hire me.

What real dental contracts say

I’d rather show you actual published agreements than describe a stereotype. Two dental marketing firms post their full terms publicly, which is more transparency than most offer, and both are worth reading as examples of how ownership gets sliced.

One firm’s terms state that all ads, ad copy, and landing pages are the property of the agency; that the agency runs all advertising through its own business accounts rather than client accounts; that it owns all raw video footage shot at your practice, which you may purchase for an additional fee while it retains the copyright regardless; and that title and full ownership rights in the website design project remain at all times solely with the agency. You keep the URL. You do not get working files.

Another states that the client retains ownership of its domain name, but that the agency maintains administrative control or access to the domain as necessary to perform services — and that the agency retains ownership of all underlying design styles, templates, layouts, animations, and stock images.

Neither of these is a scandal, and I want to be fair: publishing your terms is the honest thing to do, and both firms did. The point is what the terms reveal about the category. “You own your website” and “you own your domain” are narrow statements. A practice can own the domain and the words while owning none of the design, code, photos, video, ad creative, or working files.

One pattern worth learning to spot: ownership granted in one clause and carved back in another. If §3 says you own the deliverables and §24 says title remains with the vendor, that’s exactly what a lawyer is for.

Stock photos are their own trap. Shutterstock’s Standard and Enhanced licenses are not transferable to another party — the license belongs to whoever bought it, which is usually the vendor. Reusing those images on a new site isn’t automatically covered.

If you’re leaving, do it in this order

The sequencing genuinely matters and almost nobody mentions it.

ICANN’s Transfer Policy imposes a 60-day inter-registrar transfer lock following a Change of Registrant — a material change to the registrant’s name, organization, or email. The policy itself advises registrars to tell you that if your goal is to move to a different registrar, you should request the inter-registrar transfer first, and change the registrant afterward, to avoid triggering the lock.

Get that backwards and you’re stuck for two months mid-divorce from a vendor.

The rest of the checklist:

Get the auth/EPP code. The registrar must provide it and remove the transfer lock within five calendar days of your request if there’s no self-service option.
Know your rights if they stall. ICANN’s policy says a registrar must not refuse to release an auth code solely because of a payment dispute, and must not use transfer processes to secure payment.
Capture your DNS records first — especially MX, SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. Getting these wrong takes down practice email, not just the website. This is the most commonly botched step.
Export lead data immediately. One published agreement gives 30 days after termination before the account is deleted in full.
Sort out Google. If an agency is primary owner of your Business Profile, you can request access through Google; the current owner has three days to respond. A GA4 property can be moved between accounts if you have admin on both.

Worth knowing: ICANN’s board adopted a rewrite of the Transfer Policy in June 2026 that will eventually remove the change-of-registrant step. It hasn’t been written into consensus policy yet, so 60 days is still the operative rule as I write this.

And if a vendor is flatly refusing to release your domain over money: courts have not been sympathetic. In DSPT International v. Nahum, the Ninth Circuit held that it is bad faith to hold a domain name for ransom and affirmed $152,000 in damages — expressly noting it didn’t matter whether the disputed money was actually owed. That’s a Ninth Circuit case, so binding only there, and it turns on trademark rights in your practice name. Lawyer territory. But you are not without options.

The questions to ask before you sign

Whose registrar account is the domain in — mine, or yours?
Does the contract include a present assignment of copyright, or only work-for-hire language?
What exactly do I take if I leave: domain, content, design, code, working files, photos, video?
Are my Google Business Profile, Analytics, and Ads accounts owned by me with you granted access, or the reverse?
Does the agreement auto-renew, what’s the notice window, and what do I owe if I leave mid-term?
How long do I have to export lead data after termination?
Is there anything here that lets you withhold the site, domain, data, or accounts over a payment dispute?

The ADA’s own closing advice on this is the right note to end on: have your attorney review any contract before signing. Your website is part of your practice; protect it accordingly.

My answers, since it would be strange not to give them: the domain goes in your account under your email, you own everything I make for you, there’s no contract, and if you leave I hand over the files and help you move. That’s not generosity — it’s just what the arrangement should be.

If you want a hand working out what you currently own, get in touch. No pressure either way.