Copyrighting a website?

Conrad11 · 1 Oct 2006 at 13:04

Hi there,

When copyrighting a website, is there anything i need to do? Or do i just add a copyright notice to the bottom?

Thanks.

Gman · 1 Oct 2006 at 13:15

Conrad11 said:
Hi there,

When copyrighting a website, is there anything i need to do? Or do i just add a copyright notice to the bottom?

Thanks.

Not quite sure, but if I remember correctly I think even without the copyright notice it's still in effect copyrighted. Think a lot just put it there for show really.

Gaverick · 1 Oct 2006 at 13:28

Copyright requires no formal paperwork, just stick the copyright sign on it.

huppy · 2 Oct 2006 at 15:55

Am I being really oldschool by saying you have to post the code to yourself? The poststamp on the (unopened) envelope then marks as proof of copyright.

shifty_uk · 2 Oct 2006 at 16:08

When a design/website is created, it is instantly copyright. Both the design and the source. You don't even need to provide a copyright statement.

If your website was completely copied, as long as you can provide evidence that you created it, everything is fine. I doubt this would happen though.

huppy said:
Am I being really oldschool by saying you have to post the code to yourself? The poststamp on the (unopened) envelope then marks as proof of copyright.

You can, but don't need to. It just provides more evidence that the source belongs to you.

edit --

Copyright protection begins when any of the above described work is actually created and fixed in a tangible form.

Source: http://www.whatiscopyright.org/

MagSafe · 2 Oct 2006 at 20:23

This should be of some use: http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ66.pdf

There isn't much point in copyrighting a website though, irrc you can only ever do anything if someone earns money from your site, if someone were to copy one of your designs you could do very little about it.

Craig321 · 3 Oct 2006 at 00:47

I read somewhere that in England when you come up with a unique idea and put it into physical form it's automatically copyrighted to you?

toString · 3 Oct 2006 at 01:04

But who will you run to when bobby smith copies your site? And how much will it cost for you to get it off the internet...

robmiller · 3 Oct 2006 at 01:14

huppy said:
Am I being really oldschool by saying you have to post the code to yourself? The poststamp on the (unopened) envelope then marks as proof of copyright.

If this were anything but crap, any sensible person would make a fortune mailing themselves unopened envelopes, sticking other people's product designs in them and then suing

punky_munky · 3 Oct 2006 at 11:58

I'd be honoured if someone ripped off my design.

daz · 3 Oct 2006 at 12:25

This is a very interesting area, because the copyright over the code of a site is different to the code of a program. You can't copyright the HTML tags, because they're in the public domain, and it's hard to protect the order in which you used those tags because it's unlikely that what you've done is original. The actual look of the website isn't protected because it's rendered by the web browser, and there are many different ways of achieving the same look. What is interesting, is that if anything, a website has more in common with industrial design rights rather than copyright, but design rights can only apply to 3-dimensional objects. Basically it's a very grey area, and there haven't been any cases (as far as I'm aware) to test under what area and exactly how a website's code falls under copyright law.

What is 100% copyrightable though are your original images that you have created. This is granted automatically when you create them.

shifty_uk · 3 Oct 2006 at 15:34

Craig321 said:
I read somewhere that in England when you come up with a unique idea and put it into physical form it's automatically copyrighted to you?

Correct.

robmiller said:
If this were anything but crap, any sensible person would make a fortune mailing themselves unopened envelopes, sticking other people's product designs in them and then suing

It's definitely, not crap. This is a valid way of proving that you are the maker. This method is still used.

I done law at College as a part of my HND.

daz · 3 Oct 2006 at 16:00

shifty_uk said:
Correct.

It's definitely, not crap. This is a valid way of proving that you are the maker.

It proves you are the original maker - the important point is the post mark on the envelope will contain a date that is hopefully before other people came up with the idea.