Re: Copyright notice

Copyright 101
As developers and designers, copyright law is an important issue for you to
be familiar with.

Copyright in the United States is conferred upon publication. Most other
countries have similar laws. Copyright allows the creator of an original
work, in whatever format, to have a period of time to attempt to make money
from their labor.
[snip]
"Copyright protection subsists from the time the work is created in fixed
form. The copyright in the work of authorship immediately becomes the
property of the author who created the work. Only the author or those
deriving their rights through the author can rightfully claim copyright."
[/snip]
U.S. Copyright Basics
http://www.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ1.html#wci

If you choose to retain copyright in the case of graphic art , text, logos
and the other elements that go into creating a site, an examination of the
ways that you can assign and slice and dice these rights and derivitives is
in order.

Ivan Love has written extensively on this issue on his website, as has Doug
Isenberg.

Work for Hire
Most independant website designers build sites as Works for Hire.
Simply put, in a Work For Hire, Copyright belongs to the folks that wrote
the check.

I build sites this way as I like building sites, not spending my time
tracking down logos and images just to go to court.

A bit more complicated explanation is from the US Copyright site:

In the case of works made for hire, the employer and not the employee is
considered to be the author.
[snip]
Section 101 of the copyright law defines a "work made for hire" as:
(1) a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her
employment; or
(2) a work specially ordered or commissioned for use as a contribution to a
collective work, as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, as
a translation, as a supplementary work, as a compilation, as an
instructional text, as a test, as answer material for a test, or as an
atlas, if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them
that the work shall be considered a work made for hire....
[/snip]

The language above is pretty clear on the distinction. The last point is
important as the agreement is in a written instrument. This would a contract
outlining the terms and conditions that you will be swapping money for
pixels.

To pursue a court case of copyright infringment you need to register your
images, text, ect.

An subsidiary but equally inportant issue are trademarks and their impact on
client website development.

Trademark 101
A trademark is usually a registered visual representation of a company, most
commonly a logo which creates a brand for a company. Some trademarks are
names such as Ford, Chevrolet, IBM. Using a Trademark such as a logo image
or a registered name without permission is infringement.

A lot of sites are built with trademarks and logos as visual elements to
enhance a site and to provide branding and association with different types
of sites, such as a parts business. "We service Tuckers!" You need to be
clear in building sites that your clients have permission to use these
symbols in the sites you build.

Permissions are obtainable as easy as an email to large incomprehensible
contracts, royalties, and revenue sharing arrangements so complex that a
large portion of your income has to go to your lawyers.

See Ivan or Doug about these types of arraingments.

The nature of the sites you build will dictate the complexity of obtaining
these items. Companies expend enormous amounts of money to build brand
identity and positive associations with their logos and trademarks for their
businesses. They have a vested interest in keeping these symbols of their
companies unsullied by misrepresentation.

Joint and Several Liability is the phrase most commonly used to drag your
butt into court in these trademark infringement foodfights.

alan herrell - the head lemur
Help a Site http://www.evolt.org
Keep a Site http://domain-issues.org
Standards for Sites http://www.webstandards.org
Buy a Site http://www.lemurzone.com

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