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What exactly is copyright and how does it affect people in the digital age?
What if I create a web site from scratch and I want to make sure it remains mine?
What if I create a skin for a forum or Web CMS, how can I make sure I retain the credit for it?
The questions here and many more like it, you can hear being asked all over the Internet. I think it's time for a few answers to help weed through some of the muck and mire that surrounds protecting your hardwork.
First we will be dealing with the digital end of copyright protection. Now let's define exactly what copyright is.
Copyright is a protection that covers published and unpublished forms of expression as long as these works are fixed in a tangible or material form. It arises automatically when a protectable work has been fixed in a tangible medium such as a floppy disk or hard drive. Copyright is the ability to exclude not necessarily the right to publish. For example, a picture taken of a famous actress in a private compromising position. The photograph may be copyrighted by the photographer, however he does not necessarily hold the rights to publish the picture.
There are more ins and outs to copyright then one article will be able to clarify so we will keep this more as a guide for the steps you should take to protect the work that you create.
One of the most difficult areas to get past in copyright laws is the term "fair use". This means that most uses dealing with education, criticisms, or areas that serve the Public interest are found to be favorable. Uses that result in profits, or other Commercial uses are generally found to be violations. There are exceptions to this rule too though. The Supreme Court ruled that Newspapers are not automatically precluded from using other material, yet Newspapers are certainly profit driven.
In an effort to protect your work I will outline some very simple steps that should make it much easier to protect your creations if they are being exploited. Keep in mind that the guy who stole one of your images from your web page or forums will in most cases be able use them personally and there is not a lot you can do about it unless you have an Attorney on retainer or plenty of cash handy.
For the sake of this example we will use forums skins.
We have just created a new forum skin and are anxious to show it off.
1) The very first thing we do is to preserve the skin on a disc. Now it is a tangible and copyright law applies to it.
2) We take the disc and mail it to ourselves, when it arrives we store it safely and do NOT open it. This is an inexpensive but effective way of proving the date of the creation.
3) Registration is a neccessity if you want to be prepared for filing a suit. The basic cost in the US is $30.00. Pretty expensive right? The good news is that you can register an entire disc with say, 100 skins as a "Collection" for the same $30.00 it would cost you to register one. My suggestion would be to record the entire web site, layout, forum, skin etc as one Collection of artistic expression.
4) While it is not a neccessity to include the copyright on a web site I would strongly suggest that you do. A work does not have to be registered in order to carry the copyright sign. If you look at the bottom of this page you will see a very broad covering copyright notice. The date is reference for the year it was created.
By taking all of the steps here you will greatly reduce the costs you would go through in the event that someone actually does take your work and begins to make a profit from it. The question you need to ask yourself when faced with someone using your work is this. "Is it worth the money I need to spend in order to file a suit?"
If they are making money from your work then it may very well be. If theya re not and they have just repackaged your work then it probably isn't worth the effort to force them to remove it. For those that use web hosts however you may have other options. You can file a Notice of Copyright Infringement with their web host. In most cases they will quickly address the situation. You can use this EXAMPLE just fill in the fields with the relavent information.
Here are a few more links that should prove useful:
Copyright on the Internet
What is Copyright Protection
Free Advice
Take the time and protect your work! |
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