Copyright.

[DanUK]

Hello,

Just a quick query if I may.

How do you actually go about recording a website as your "own", I know the copyright notices etc prevent unauthorised reproductions, but say for example another site copied your design, and then you reported this - most enforcement agencies request *proof* that you had the design first.

How do you go about recording this information to produce if the above scenario ever occurred, or what's acceptable?

This is something I've been wanting to find out for a while, and hope you can help!

Thanks.

Regards,

[David Harrison]

Well as far as proof goes, just whack a link to your site in your sig and then you've got lots of people people saying "yeah he's had that design for ages".

[MstrBob]

You could always go for the good old "poor man's copyright" method, and save a copy of the website (or one page of the design, at leaste) to a disk and send it via the mail to yourself. Though not very official, it contains the date as posted by the USPS, and if left unopened and untampered with, can provide as strong evidence. Though, it's not as good as actually copyrighting something. I don't know much about copyrighting web site designs, though.

Erm, by the way, this is by US law.

[rhsunderground]

i simply put a little note on the bottom of my site saying "copyright 2004 Ben Kaye-Skinner, blah blah blah" and know that if somebody actually steals my code they are RETARDED because i used a BlueRobot template. it's my poetry that i'm most concerned with.

[PeOfEo]

I thought I had read in the business matters section that for websites, as soon as it is made, it is the property of the maker. So technically you would own rights to all of your pages right away. But that is not going to hold up if you take someone to court I guess.

[AdamGundry]

"Poor man's copyright" (http://www.copyrightauthority.com/poor-mans-copyright/) is something of an urban legend - it's neither necessary nor sufficient for enforcing copyright. To be honest, I don't think it's likely to be a problem - breah of copyright as regards webpages is rare, especially if you put a copyright notice on the site as RHS suggested, and you can always threaten legal action. However, if you want you can file it with an unofficial register (http://www.intellectual-property.gov.uk/std/faq/copyright/unofficial_registers.htm) in the UK or the US Copyright Office (http://www.copyright.gov/).

One tip is to keep old versions/backups of the site as you develop it, so you can demonstrate on the balance of probability that you were the copyright owner.

Adam

[the tree]

You could "let" people take your work under a creative commons lisence, that way they probaly not try to steal it as the can use it anyway.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/1.0/

[baconbutty]

PROOF OF COPYRIGHT

A modern version of the poor man's copyright is digital timestamping.

E.g.

http://www.mit.edu/~jis/timestamp.html


Under this you take all of your web site files (as suggested by Adam Gundry), and create a "hash value". This hash value is then signed by a timestamp service provider.

COPYRIGHT OWNERSHIP

I would agree, that copyright in most jurisdictions is automatically yours when you author something (no other step need be taken). In the US there is a registration process I believe, but I do not know much more than that.

The purpose of using the copyright statement/symbol, is that it raises a presumption that the copyright is yours, so that it is for others to prove otherwise.

However proof of authorship may still ultimately be necessary.

I would agree that posting something to yourself provides some good evidence that you were the author, but it is not definitive, and a court would look at all of the facts.

In many cases, a history of usage is quite persuasive. E.g. if I were to publish a book, and it remained in circulation without challenge, it is going to be harder for others to challenge my claim to be the author. That is also how Microsoft have succeeded in claims relating to software such as Microsoft Word.

GET SOME PERSPECTIVE

In any event, copyright is not like a patent: it does not prevent people from independently coming up with similar ideas (provided that they did not blatantly copy your web site). Hence why there is so much argument over software patenting: a patent does stop others reinventing your ideas.

When it comes to web development, the world is full of ideas, so it will often be the case that more than one person independently comes up with the same idea/design, particularly in the case of web/software development where like minds will converge on similar solutions.

Often we will come up with ideas heavily influenced by what we have seen surfing or visiting forums such as these.

Google is the ultimate Total Perspective Vortex (obscure reference), or if you prefer, the ultimate proof that there is in many cases nothing new under the sun.

Accordingly, it will be rare that you would be able to easily challenge someone else's use of you web site designs/ideas similar to yours, unless the similarity is so blatant or your design is so special that it would be unlikely that they would have come up with it independently. In such case, if you are in business, you may be looking instead at trade mark/passing off claims instead.

Copyright is of more significance the case of complex software, or in graphic artwork or literary/dramatic works, where the scope for differences and skill in expression is much greater, and so the liklihood of two persons coming up with the same thing much smaller.

To summarise, there only ever likely to be one Shakespeare, but there are a million authors of roll-over effects implemented in javascript.

OPEN SOURCE

As the latter comment points out, rather than resisting, you could embrace the open source movement.

[Poegle]

I done a website for someone when I first started getting a little better, didn't get paid or anything but it was still my work, I sent it to him and he fiddled around with some of the code which was the navigation so the forum would load on the same page which it was already set as but he tampered with it and messed it up, meaning I had to re-do that section.

He then decided to change the credits page I put up which had a list of who did what, which was like:

Code and Design: John Hogan
Additional Support: Mr. Herer (would of put real name but didn't know if he would wanted me to).

He then put his name on everything saying he done it all.

I got a friend who me and Mr Herer know to get a email to tell him to take it down and he got all arsey with me and said "Well if your going to be like this im going to take it down see how you like that!".....not a bright chap

I just put down Copyright (c) (cant remember how to get logo) John Hogan 2004 at the bottom of my pages.

[rhsunderground]

the © sign is ©

[IncaWarrior]

or even easier (works almost all the time) "©"

[Reli4nt]

When it comes down to it, there really are no guarantees once something is posted on line so if you're attached to it lock it in a box somewhere and bury it, otherwise relax and let it be.