Ian Usher said ..
> I repeat the question: if you create a superbly laid-out page, with original
> low-bandwidth GIFs, simple but effective design etc. and someone lifts it
> all, changes the colour and replicates the layout, should you bother
> pestering them or just be flattered? If I replicated the BBC News layout
> exactly but merely replaced their GIFs with my own similar ones, would they
> come after me with a big legal stick for doing an impersonation of Auntie's
> website?
Well you may choose to take this as a compliment, but legally that is
irrelevant. Copyright protects intellectual content, and a well designed
WWW site is an intellectual product - even a work of art? The design is
protected by copyright. Parts of it, if you wish, may be established as
trademarks (but that's another issue). But you will have to prove your
copyright if you want to enter into a dispute - how this can be best
done is unclear - any documentation you might have relating to your
design process would be relevant, and perhaps should be archived just in
case. The problem may be that someone else will try and claim you stole
their design when the reverse is the case - how will you prove
precedence.
The more likely problem is one of "passing off" - ie. constructing a
website to look like the BBC or whatever with the deliberate intention
of deceiving the end user. I think in such cases the site concerned
would need to show evidence of damage (eg. loss of revenue) to succeed in court.
In the case of templates, I would guess that when you buy FrontPage, you
are licencing the use of the templates to produce your website. I cannot
see that sites could successfully dispute copyright over something
generated from a third parties intellectual copyright. But there will be
a grey area between something produced from a template and an original
work.
Regards,
Colin
--
_________________________________________________
Colin K. Work
Computing Services
University of Southampton
email [log in to unmask]
tel. 01703 593090 (direct line)
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|