Copyright

[CliveC]

I see many web sites with copyright notices. Does anyone have any experience or knowledge about trying to enforce a copyright.

 

[azhdeem]

I completed a class at my University a couple of terms ago which was devoted to copyrights and multimedia law. And I remember a few things. Essentially, anything can be copyrighted as long as can be determined it is

1. an original work
2. shows some small amount of creativity

but you don't have to be registered with the copyright office to have the rights. Anything you create (as long as it has the above points) is copyrighted by you.

This is where it gets confusing and by no means simpler when it comes to electronic format (i.e. webpages). The law is one step behind us techies in this department.

In my opinion, when I see a website that possesses copyright notification on it, it just is telling me that everything on the website is owned by that person. I do not know this for certain, but what the notification essentially is saying is that, "I am putting on record, for all to see, the fact that I own the copyrights on all the material on this site, and am protected under the law against unauthorized use of this material." This gives you some legal ammunition to fight with in court, if you see your material elsewhere and they claim they didn't know it was yours.

Copyright law is very difficult to enforce or even define. And enforcement of the law is COSTLY...trust me. If you see your material used elsewhere without your permission, the first step I would say is just send a warning letter to the offender. Many times that is sufficient to fix the situation. Otherwise, get yourself a good lawyer and get ready for a potentially long and drawn out fight.

I don't know if this is very confusing. I am very much more artist than lawyer, and am rushing through this -- I am at work... If you are in need of greater explanation, there are many art/tech universities that offer a Multimedia Law class that can give you a much better explanation than my 10 minute typ-o-rama.

Hope this helps.
Jer
azhdeem@hotmail.com

 

[GaryR49]

Any intellectual property you create (whether "creative" or not) is "copyrighted," in that, you automatically own all rights to it at the moment of creation. However, this doesn't afford you much, if any, legal protection. If someone uses your work without permission and gains a profit from doing so, or claims the work to be their own, there isn't much you can do about it, legally speaking, unless you've actually registered your work with the Copyright Office. Sometimes, though, just posting a notice of Copyright is sufficient to ward off theft, but only by those who are honest. However, as we've all seen, even copyright notices, lawsuits and jail time aren't enough to keep many people from theiving your work, particularly if you're a recording artist.

 

[cian]

Just to add my own two cents,

A copyright comes into being once your "creation" is in a tangible form. You dont need to display a copyright notice, the copyright is in place anyway however you should display the notice and it should contain the following
-your name (or known alias)
-the word copyright and the copyright symbol
-the date

For your webpages the best advice is as soon as you create your pages online print them out to display the webaddress and the date. If it comes down to it you can use these as evidence of your ownership. Its not much but better than nothing.

I have seen info recently on what actions to take in the situation of copyright infringement, I can search for these if you wish.




I got bloody bored at the weekend:

http://endamcg.com/hitman/

É,
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[zumie]

Have you ever tried to prosecute someone for copyright infringement when you are in one country and the offender is in another?

Good luck! I have copyright footers on my sites but most the time it's to appease the client. MSB
webdev@cox.net