Copyright

[Shmit]

Soon i will be making my first client webpage. i was wondering, how do i properly copyright the site?

 

[pcmagic]

yes i was wondering this myself ...

Like so people cant take images and other stuf ...

 

[netware]

by international law, the minute you finish a job, it is protected by the copyright law, so knowing this, what you actually do by writting a privacy statement, is reminding people of this, so just write a simple statement where you express that you grant the user the permission to solely read the work, and blah blah, and that any misuse of the permission its punishable by law, make it more fancy and it'll be good

 

[Arkette]

First of all there is no internationaly identifiable law or convention on copyright. there is the Berne convention on copyright 1886 but the only participants were the UK and the US. Other countries have since incorporated the maxims of the Berne convention into there own law, but it should not be assumed. Copyright law varies from country to country, which in terms of internet publishing is problematic to say the least. Generally you can take it that copyright exists on a piece of IP (intellectual property) as soon as it exists in a tangible form. If you then publish that work, it must be accompanied by a copyright statement (not privacy statement - which is something else entirely) The copyright statement should be composed in the form:

Copyright ©2006, yourname. All rights reserved.

Inclusion of the words all rights reserved is important in terms of a published work because otherwise certain limited rights are assumed in the laws of some countries. Lastly copyright law is civil law not criminal law. If someone contravenes your copyright then you will have to take them to court in the country where the infringement took place. Effectively for most people this means that if you publish a work on the internet then you have given it to the world.

 

[Shmit]

thanks. that helps a lot.

 

[Shmit]

if i am making a web page for a company, and i have no affiliation with that company, do i put my name for the copyright, or do i still put that companies name?

 

[Arkette]

if i am making a web page for a company, and i have no affiliation with that company, do i put my name for the copyright, or do i still put that companies name?

Generaly speaking if your contracting for a company in this way, then you would assign the copyright in toto to the that company, so it would be their name at the bottom of the page. The only time this may differ is if some of the photographic or graphic material is produced by someone who only licenses the material under a limited right issue, in which case you might have to include their copyright statement as well.

 

[Shmit]

Generaly speaking if your contracting for a company in this way, then you would assign the copyright in toto to the that company, so it would be their name at the bottom of the page. The only time this may differ is if some of the photographic or graphic material is produced by someone who only licenses the material under a limited right issue, in which case you might have to include their copyright statement as well.

So i would just put there copyright info, and then maybe put created by.... to give myslef credit for making the page?

 

[Arkette]

So i would just put there copyright info, and then maybe put created by.... to give myslef credit for making the page?

Absolutement!

 

[Munkeypop]

Arkette:
Do you know of any sites where I can find a fairly comprehensive run down of all the legal matters to do with developing and running a website? i.e. Disclaimers, Terms of Service, Privicy Policy. You seem to know what your talking about Just looking for a starting point for the whole run down basically.

 

[Arkette]

Sorry I'm afraid I don't know of any such sites, although I'm sure there must be some. My knowledge of copyright law comes from a lifetimes experience as freelance photographer.