Web Design Copyright
As a follow-up to the somewhat hot-headed rant I posted last week, I wanted to share with you some information about copyrighting websites and a few mechanics behind protecting work. A lot of this information was researched for my book, but it’s been an issue I’ve liked to stay close to since taking copyright law courses in college. (I am not a lawyer, so take this stuff for what it’s worth — in an unofficial, but very confident, capacity.) I have also included some links at the end of the post.
The US government provides three different types of protection for intellectual property:
- Patents. Unless you’re trying to patent a particular process, or a piece of browsing software, patents have little to do with the day-to-day design of websites.
- Trademarks. These are a little more common, but they are reserved for unique pieces of design that transcend mediums — logos, slogans, and even product designs.
- Copyright. For the web, copyright is almost always the beast in question, and has caused ripples of contention across the internet since CERN launched the first webpage in 1991.
Who Owns the Goods?
Figuring out who actually owns the work in question is probably the most complex piece of the puzzle. Companies who developed the site in-house are covered under work made for hire laws; everything a full-time employee creates is owned outright by their patron company.
The situation gets dicier when a freelancer or agency is involved. Technically, the creator owns the rights to the work. This means that unless the contract stipulates a transfer of rights, or the freelancer accepted into a work made for hire agreement, the company has no claim to the material. Many organizations falsely assume that once they buy the services of a designer, they own the final work.
Another bug in the system is the handling of non-original elements such as stock photos, illustrations, outsourced creative work, and more. In order to fully claim copyright, the company either has to directly acquire the rights, or use them in a way that constitutes an original work. Sound thorny? It is.
Registering the Work
In an effort to further complicate the issue, the US Copyright Office does not provide a form specifically written to protect work on the web. Instead, a site has to be registered within one of several antiquated, pre-Internet set of parameters:
- Form TX covers published or unpublished literary works, and is suitable for text-heavy websites (typically a good choice for corporate domains).
- Form VA covers published or unpublished visual arts work, and is probably the better choice for websites heavy on visual art (such as original photography).
- Form SE covers serial work, such as newspapers, magazines, and other periodicals, and could easily apply to blogs or sites like Digital Web.
There is no magic bullet; every website can be registered under only one form. By today’s standards, the system is older than the hills, and it’s no secret a web-oriented amendment is long overdue. Too much is left to interpretation in a medium where infringement is all too easy and all too common.
Protecting the Work
Because the copy and paste function makes months of hard work stealable in mere seconds, web designers and content creators have to perform due diligence in protecting their work.
- Register your site. In the US, it only costs $45. While technically you own the right to the work as soon as you create it, registering the work with the government provides a concrete date that can be used in court. An official registration is critical to successful legal action, and really necessary if you’re going after statutory damages.
- Add a copyright notice to the bottom of every page. This should be properly formatted as Copyright Year Copyright Owner, such as Copyright 2008 Kevin Potts. Make sure the year is current. (“All rights reserved,” often seen accompanying the copyright, is unnecessary.)
- Add a copyright notice to your CSS files. Invisible to everyone except those actually peeking under the hood.
For designers and content creators who make a living working on the web, copyright is an absolutely critical thing to understand. Each country is also different. The UK has their Copyright Services Australia, by contrast, has no copyright laws in place.
Further Resources
- Web Design and Marketing Solutions for Business Websites. My book really goes into detail about this topic, and dedicates an entire chapter to the legalese surrounding a website. Buy it.
- The US Copyright Office at copyright.gov has lots of great information written for the layman.
- TechRepublic compiled a collection of legal templates, including the following:
- How to Protect a Copyrighted Work, a good article about the DMCA and the mechanics of copyrighting work.
- The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has an awesome collection of material on intellectual property, including IP cases, white papers, and more.
- Laws of .com and Tech Law Journal both cover legal matters on the web.
Comments.
Lawrence San
- wrote the following on Saturday December 22, 2007
usakarate
- wrote the following on Wednesday December 26, 2007
Kevin
- wrote the following on Friday January 4, 2008
Sharon
- wrote the following on Thursday May 22, 2008
Abby
- wrote the following on Thursday May 22, 2008
