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Is HTML Copyrightable?
Chris Redd asks: "I am involved now in a lawsuit where the basis is that HTML code is copyrightable. My question is, when can HTML code be copyrighted? Here is a brief explanation: I was brought in as a contractor to finish a website for an advertising agency because Company X (who started the job) didn't have the expertise to finish it. The advertising agency that brought me in did all the design, created the graphics and came up with all of the concepts (so they own the design/style of the site). Now the first company is suing me for Intellectual Property theft, saying I stole proprietary code. I don't see it that way, they didn't do any design, and any code they had was generated by a commercial program!" Strange, but I would think that since Company X were hired to do the job, then whatever they had developed belonged to the advertising agency that hired them. Am I missing an issue here that would make this untrue?
"The company they HAD doing it simply put the pieces together in DreamWeaver.
I used there DreamWeaver code as a base (to get it done quickly), but I went through the code and re-did it to run under Unix (they had it running on an NT box). I also replaced all the backend NT executables with CGI/Perl and a Java Servlet for the shopping cart, all code I wrote myself.
The advertising agency is having their lawyers defend me, but I wanted to get the technical view from Slashdot, since the lawyers just drill me and keep me out of the loop."
The company that I work for retains all Interlectual property rights to all code we create for clients. That way we can resell the same piece of code again and again. If this is the case then there may be something in their case. They have some nerve though. 'We suck and can't finish the project. But we will sue the person that can.'
[Please type your sig here.]
My friend bought a computer from Dell about a year ago. Just the other day, I installed a new motherboard, processor, and hard drive for him. So, using this logic if I'd have charged him anything, Dell could sue me because I modified a product they producded that is now owned by another....wtf?
Imladris: Lord of the Rings Movie News
This shouldn't really be a matter of whether it's HTML, or any other particular kind of code, but a pretty normal IP problem. And how the code was generated shouldn't really be a factor either.
IANALBILTTATSA.
(I am not a lawyer but I like to talk about this stuff anyway.)
"You can never have too many elephants on your team."
IANAL, but HTML is copyrightable. The real question in this case seems to be who owns the copyright. First, the orignal code was performed as work for hire according to your account. The copyright of work for hire is usually owned by the entity which paid for the work to be done, not by the entity performing the work.
The interesting question, to me anyway, is who owns the HTML which was automattically generated?
The Economics of Website Security
First of all, this is a non-issue because everything you can do with HTML has been done 1000 times before... hell, they probably stole the code themselves.
Remember, HTML is just a presentation "language". It's not what is copyrightable. What IS copyrightable, however, is the data that it marks up.
IAAL, but get your own before you take my word for anything. 1) Yes, HTML code is copyrightable. If the company does have the copyright to it, they can stop you from copying. 1a) No, the company can't do anything about it if you re-wrote the thing from scratch on your own. 2) The company will have copyright if what you did was a "work made for hire," otherwise you have the copyright. 3) The question of "work made for hire" depends on agency law according to the leading case (CCNV v. Reid), which involves around 12 factors. Good luck!
You seem to have multiple legal questions here, and I am not a lawyer in any jurisdiction although I am 3-1 pro se.
"Is HTML copyrightable?" Sure it is. You don't lose the ability to copyright code or text just because it has tags in it, do you?
You hint that there's a question of who owns the copyright to the partially-completed work of the first company. All I can say is, "That's a good question and it depends on a lot of things."
There is also the question of whether you've violated a copyright by modifying their HTML, assuming that the first company even owns it.
And then you have to consider damages. It's possible to violate a copyright but prove that the copyright holder didn't lose money as a result...
Oy, my head hurts. From what you've provided, it's a complicated situation. "Is HTML coyprightable?" is just one question among many.
I got an error the first time I tried to post this, so...
When, oh when, will people stop asking for legal advice on Slashdot?
Not only are the odds in favor of getting dozens of not-necessarily-correct opinions from non-lawyers very high, but I consider it extremely unlikely that any lawyer who does read this is going to give out free advice.
Spend a couple hundred bucks, and talk to someone in your hometown who is well versed in copyright law. Don't ask the folks who (in general) come off as supporting the copyright violations facilitated by Napster and Gnutella.
------
If a tree falls on an anonymous coward yelling 'first post' in the forest, does anybody hear?
When I have done design in the past, I've stuck language in the contract indicating that the client owns all the content and graphics, but I own the code, mainly so they couldn't resell my site with new content and graphics. (Note: I have no idea if that's legal or would hold up in court, but it was worth a shot in my mind.) There must be some kind of language about who owns what in the contract.
Incidentally, claiming that the code isn't theirs because it's Dreamweaver generated seems specious to me. If I generate music with a MIDI program, the music is still mine, isn't it?
The company is bitter about losing the account with the advertising agency, that's for sure!! I'd say they're a first-year Mom and Pop with clueless morons behind the wheel. 'Gee, Bill. Let's get into this Internet thingie. We'll get a copy of some software and sell ourselves as web designers! They don't seem to have to know much!' I don't think they have a leg to stand on. Normally the fruits of paid labor belong to your employer. This includes work done on a conditional payment contract, as they probably were. (You don't get paid if you don't finish) Obviously the ad agency agrees with the two of us, and they're probably a pretty decent employer. They don't have to pay for a lawyer to defend you, after all!! Stick with them!
.sig: Now legally binding!
I would think that
1) an HTML file could very well be copyrighted, just like any other work, but
2) The advertising agency would own the HTML that the original company created for them. The lawyers, I'm sure, are going back over the contracts that defined that relationship to make that determination.
They certainly sound like litigious parasites, that's for sure...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
The company selling the code can't retain all rights, or else you wouldn't receive anything from them. The contract clearly had to indicate that there was some type of deliverable. The delivery of that product or service implicitly has to be usable by the recipient. In other words, even if they retain a non-exclusive right to the work they create, they cannot exclude you from using what they sold you. There is no way that they can win, unless the company never paid them at all for their partial work.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
I checked the copyright office's web site for the list of things that couldn't be copyrighted. Included on that list was "mere variations of typographic ornamentation, lettering, or coloring." That's a pretty good description of what HTML does.
Also on the list was "works consisting entirely of information that is common property and containing no original authorship." HTML code would seem to fall into that category as well.
I'd say that there is no standing to claim HTML as copyrightable, but who knows what silliness the courts will engage in this time.
-- Diana Hsieh
-- Diana Hsieh
GeekPress: The Weirder Side of Tech News
what good is "good" code if it isnt used?
HTML is certainly copyrightable. I think it falls under the same copyright laws as any other written works.
However, contracts might have reassigned those rights. Look into those as carefully as possible. It is possible, depending on the terms of the first company's contract, that they could have a case. IANAL, of course, but that's how it seems based on previous stories like this.
By the way, I doubt that the "DreamWeaver defense" would hold up in court. So much stuff is generated by computer nowadays that I get the feeling that the program used to generate it is basically ignored by the law.
INAL but you should idg up some gereric stff you did long ago, find the same stuff in their generated code and countersue them for infringment. Then post the name of the company on SlashDot so we can slam their website.
Work-for-hire is pretty standard in software, and it makes more sense. But if the company suing you didn't sign such a contract (which is easy to imagine, considering how fast-and-loose the industry is right now), they might have a legal leg to stand on.
Although this might negatively affect your case, my first instinct would be to publicize this nasty suit. Legality notwithstanding, I can't imagine a single agency willing to hire someone who sued somebody for maintaining their code ...
Francis Hwang
Do domain names matter?
What did their contract say? If they at all agreed to the (common as dirt) terms that the client owns the code, then they have no leg to stand on. If not, then the ad agency signed a very stupid contract -- you should always require rights in perpetuity to use the code as delivered. It might be different if you could be accused of developing derived works from the materials, but this is clearly what they were contracted for in the first place.
Sounds like lawyer-happy non-business people. No one with any sort of experience in contracting is going to believe they have a case by doing this, geez...
It's a strange world -- let's keep it that way
I mean, no judge worth is salt is going to let this stand up --- regardless if it was specifically stated in the original contract or not.
If this other web developer was creating something at the direction of the ad agency -- the ad adgency owns it. That much is implied by the relationship. He was simply the tool builder that implemented the design....
The first web developer sounds like a real class act...undoubtly this was one of his first jobs...and probably one of his last....
If the original text and image content of the web site was provided to company X by the ad agency, it seems possible that what company X really did is to perform a mechanical transformation of it into marked-up HTML. That is, the ad agency owns the copyright on the content, and hired company X to do some labour (which they did, albeit poorly - this would be what was bought and paid for in the original contract). The final HTML product is obviously copyrighted, but I'd suppose that it's a derivative work made from the original unformatted content (which belongs to the agency). Labour done to manipulate content needn't always create new copyrighted content. Some of the comments thus far seem to be confusing the question of whether the content is copyrighted with whether the added tags are (the latter being my interpretation of what's being asked here).
Naturally it makes no difference at all whether they used Dreamweaver, vi, or wrote up tags on a napkin - the point is that they either created content to which they own the copyright, or (as I suggest above) merely used a particular tool to manipulate existing content.
And now I've made myself sick of the vague term "content", so I'll stop.
-- Life is short. Forgive quickly. Kiss slowly. ~ Robert Doisneau
I too work as a web developer and I do partnering with many other small web development company and everyone has their flavor of contract. I have seen a few that mentioned ownership of all materials but usually only until all payments were made. If the deliverable and payment requirements were met then it should be an open-and-shut case. Sounds like the original company didn't have the expertise to do the job or enough common sense to understand what their real position is - unqaulified ex-contractors :-)
-Ray
The last point is the reason that this is a standard clause in a contract. If it gets left out, the copyright belongs to the author, not the payer. You better get a lawyer, my friend, the bad guys have the law on their side this time.
I would have to ask whether this is a question of the HTML code itself being the issue of the copyright, or simply the visible page. If I write a book, the words are copyright, not the language itself, not the letters in which it's written. Whether I transfer that from a paper medium to electronic media, as with audio content on cd's vs mp3's, the copyright is on the 'work'. SOMEONE owns the copyright to the work on this website. It almost sounds like it will be up to a judge to decide, but I seem to remember somewhere that in matters of work for hire, unless otherwise stated, the copyright belongs to whoever produced the work. If, however, copyrighted material belonging to your ad agency were used in that work, then that material surely could not fall within their claim. Also, what were your terms with the ad agency? Did you sell them the website, or did you sell them your time/services in finishing the website? On the one hand, you might have sold them a work which contained copyrighted material you don't own. On the other, you might have simply been performing contract work for them, in which case, I believe they would be responsible for copyright issues.
These people looked deep into my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined.
The other thing is that I always, always consider my HTML markup -- and my Javascript, too -- to be in the public domain, simply because once the page is published, anybody could view the source and take it without telling me anyway. Whether they'd want to, given the quality of code I write, is another matter :-)
I've been involved this stuff like this before.
Unless explicitly stated in the contract, Company X holds the intellectual rights to any code written by them.
Now, if this code was generated by a commercial software package, then they do not have a hope in hell, as the company that originally wrote the commercial development package holds the intellectual rights to the development package, and therefore holds the intellectual rights to any canned subroutines generated by the commercial package (they ususally grant an unlimited royalty free license to the developer who purchases the software).
I actually had to write a contract that handed over all rights to a custom app I developed, but with a clause that gave me full unrestricted ownership of the code libraries I used/developed for the custom app.
To summarize, unless explicitly stated in a contract, Company X has the intellectual rights to the code, and the client has a license to use the code, modify the code, but not re-sell it.
Mind you, IANAL, but I've had to go through this shit before.....
Feed The Need[goatse.cx]
I'm not a lawyer, so I'm sorry if people think this is a worthless quote. Isn't this situation comparable to an author who uses a publishing company to format, market, and distribute her book? Obviously, the author owns the content of the book, but the publishing house owns whatever rights it has towards the layout of the book. (ie. You couldn't sell ten pages from a book even by obtaining the author's permission.) Obviously, where the author's rights end is in the contract, so isn't the question (and a few other posts have said this) whether Company X signed a contract saying all HTML code it generated belongs to the first company.
There are two things that control who owns
the copyright. The first is the contract.
The general rule is that the person writing
the code owns the copyright. Employees's
writings are owned by the employer. Contractors
usually own the copyright unless the contract
specifies that it is "work for hire", in which
case the client owns it.
The other aspect is that copyright protects
expression. Usually machine generated content
isn't copyrightable per-se, but the concepts
contained within it can be. Object code is
protected because it is a automatic translation
of the source code. So even though the code
was machine generated it might be protected
because it captured from an expression of
what the screen should look like.
Slashdot should create a spin-off site called Lawdot where people can ask these sort of questions.
Got Rhinos?
The WWW wouldn't be where it is today if it wasn't for ripping off other people's websites. That's how people learn to design dammit!
Got Rhinos?
And you must be from one of those countries where (i) people must rely solely on political favours bestowed by bureaucrats and politicians to protect themselves and their property because your judicial system is a joke and (ii) people are too ignorant, stupid and/or dirt-poor to care about respecting and protecting intellectual property.
Personally, since Company X was unable to finish a project they were hired to do, it would be a breach of contract. Thus the contract is null and void.
Example. ABC Construction asks Dynamic Datacorp to revamp their logins. Dynamic phones me and sends me over. I rewrite a bunch of scripts. A week later, ABC asks Dynamic to set up a new machine, and Dynamic sends Joe over. Joe likes what he sees and saves it to a floppy to use in other similar situations. Is Joe violating ABC's ownership? No. The code belongs to Dynamic. Is he violating Dynamic's rights? I dunno. Probably he could use them at other Dynamic customers, but not for his indie consulting. Can Dynamic ask ABC for the scripts to use at DEF construction? Probably, but they wouldn't. Can ABC sell the scripts at the annual builder's fair? Probably not.
Example 2. XYZ sales asks Doofus Design to build a web site. Doofus has them sign a contract granting all rights to Doofus. Doofus builds half of the site and stalls out. Flames fly and people say things that they will regret and everyone leaves. XYZ now hires Leet Design to fix the almost-finished website. It is likely that Leet CANNOT use any of Doofus's code. Because XYZ said in the original contract that ownership belonged to Doofus.
Example 3. BCDEF Railway contracts with Maddox Systems Inc to provide a dispatch system. MSI is unable to meet the terms of the contract and litigation begins. A settlement is reached where BCDEF is allowed use and modify MSI source code in exchange for reduced damages regarding the unfulfilled contract. BCDEF cannot sell the dispatch system, but they can assign three programmers to it for three years to beat it into adequate shape to run. (The worst year and a half of my life. If code is too grotty to pay for, it is too grotty to use as a foundation for a major system).
My conclusion. I think that XYZ should ask their lawyer whether they have any grounds to sue for non-completion of the original contract. Then XYZ could settle for a license to extend/modify/fix the code that Doofus was unable to fix. Unfortunately, I suspect that Doofus holds some strong cards here.
I too was in that problem . . . I did some FLASH development for the company and in the contract that was signed it was understood that the product I delievered to them was the Flash (.SWF) file. This however did NOT include the code (.FLA) I was gonna get sued and the ad agency threatened me but I simply pulled out the contract that was signed and in it . . it said the product would be the (.SWF) file. So then I sold them the (.FLA) files, but they thought that in developing Flash content that everything belonged to them . . yeah yeah . . no way . . .so get them contracts signed ppl ! =)
.I got my $100/per .FLA they didn't wanna pay
PS .
I don't think you should be able to copyright HTML because the number of terms and ways of doing something are very limited. If you use one technique one place to solve a problem, chances are that you will HAVE to do it that way again in the future.
It's like putting a copyright on using the word snow, or apple, or something like that. Or something even more basic. Like copyrighting the verb 'to be'.
I can see ways to copyright JavaScript and copyrighting the overall look and feel of the site. But copyrighting HTML? Oh my... How stupid.
Of course, given recent rulings by incompetent judges, you never know what precedents may be set.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - G.B. Shaw
if there's any doubt BEFORE starting the job. This case is too late now and probably hinges on who's lawyer can make the best case (i.e., $$$) - but I see this all the time: people in general are so uninformed about IP law, and personal computers are so new in many business that many times a business will hire, say, a database developer and if you ask any one of them, "well, who holds the rights to the finished product?" they will just stare and blink like it's a non-issue. This should be settled during the negotiation phase - naturally the business would want the source and exclusive rights ("hey, your not going to write this on our dime and then turn around and sell a copy to our competitor!") and the developer would want to be able to reuse code on other projects.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Seems like the ad company had a dispute with the first developers. If that was the case, and the ad agency hasn't paid for the work....whose work is it? I suspect it still belongs to the original development shop, and they have a right to bring a lawsuit against the contractor.
The issue you raise is what we lawyers refer to as the Merger Doctrine, which deals with the fact that there's only a limited number of ways to express some things. It usually shows up as a defense to copyright infringement: "I did *not* simply copy his table, I wrote it myself. Sure it looks exactly alike, but there's only a limited number of ways to write out that sort of table."
To which the prosecution counters, "A- ha! If, as you say, you wrote it yourself and did not copy from the plaintiff, why then, Sir, does every single typographical error of the plaintiff's code show up in yours? Huh? And why, Sir, did the plaintiff's superfluous 3 tabs on the otherwise blank line 164 of the file also show up in yours, eh monkey boy?!?"
Ah, I love slam-dunk fact patterns.
whuppy enjoys smelling like diesel fuel
Wow -- are all these lawsuits going to lead to a standard such as:
a submit button that says "Submit" will be in the public domain (because it's the default).
However
a submit button that says "Process" will be owned by whoever first claims copyright as the "enlightened" person who decided to use a thesaurus?
This could get really scary considering the amount of flexibility to be gained with XML...(Where in laymans terms, "new" tags and methods can be created...thus maybe copyrighted?)
Hmmm...
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
This reminds me of the story about the guy who sued his mother for slander after she told him he was overly-litigious.
It's just that frivolous.
Uncle Sam sent me to the Persian Gulf, and all I got was this lousy Syndrome!
The key here is that just about everyone on this site will preface their posts with IANAL (I am not a lawyer). What you need to find is someone who says IAAL. Lawyers get paid a lot of money to answer these questions and deal with these problems. Invest in one, otherwise you are going to lose.
Tell that to e.g. companies involved in the human genome project. They own knowledge about YOUR DNA. Well, technically, they own the right to commercially exploit that knowledge, i.e. the patents. But that's what at issue here, to commercially exploit work legally owned by somebody else...
My understanding of copyright law is that if person or company X is hired to create a program, web site, etc., and there is nothing specifically mentioning ownership of the rights in the contract, then the person or company that hired X owns the rights to the work. Thus, if I hire you to create a web site for me, I own all rights to that site, except for any parts that are copyrighted to someone else already. If the contract between us states that you retain all copyright and intellectual property rights to the code, then I have given up all my rights to modify and do whatever I wish with the code. My only option at that point is to delete it and start over, or get the owner of the IP to modify it.
Why is anything written in English copyrightable? The Roman alphabet is so limited that there is only one (or a very limited number) way to spell dog.
(In other words, a document written in HTML source code is copyrightable; the whole source, not just the tags.)
whuppy enjoys smelling like diesel fuel
I would check the contract you signed when brought aboard the agency. If YOU signed a clause stating that all IP would belong to them - then chances are the former firm did as well. However, whether they did or not - if YOU did, then they're suing the wrong party. It would be the agency you contract with who is allegedly infringing their code (which may be why they're representing you... can you say s-c-a-p-e-g-o-a-t?)
If your contract doesn't specify that the IP you create belongs to them, then chances are neither did the first firm's. In this case, yes - YOU ARE infringing on their copyrighted work. You would be best to redo the entire site from scratch, not using anything from what they left behind.
In either case - GET YOUR OWN LAWYER ASAP! Either you are up the creak, or you're being set as the scapegoat. Remember - The Ad Agencies attornies represent the Ad Agency FIRST! You're merely a secondary consideration.
I AM, therefore I THINK!
as someone else mentioned, most agencies charge extra for this ownership -- anywhere from 20% to 200% extra. the reason for this is that many agencies developed a website for someone, only to have that someone decide that the logo, etc. were da bomb! and then use it on their company letterhead, biz cards, and other marketing materials...the creative people then believe they are due additional fees for such usage (rightly so).
so...if the company you're working for didn't contract that way, you have a prob...fortunately, you can turn around and sue them for leading you to believe that they owned the materials :-)
It's not funny till someone gets hurt.
There isn't that much that you can do with HTML. Ok, maybe there is, but the probability that HTML code is really falling under some sort of copyright is pretty slim! I mean, just what did he copy out that is so proprietary? I could see a website being upset that it is being copied, but a few macros that move pictures around a screen? How is anybody else supposed to do it? This isn't assembly language we're talking about here...
Eh...
Didn't the courts extend the freedom of speech to include source code a few weeks back?? If source code is considered speech then I would assume that it would be covered under copyright laws the same as, say, literature? However, I was pretty sure that if a company wrote code, be it C or HTML, that it belonged to the company under intellectual property right laws. However, you might want to consult a lawyer.
I'm sure there are plenty of people more than interested in sharing information and advice, but unfortunately the article (and original email, possibly) make it pretty much impossible.
First off, it doesn't sound like they are claiming to have copyright on HTML code. Not only would that be tenuous under the best of circumstances, but the fact that Dreamweaver was used makes it even more unlikely.
And oh, by the way they did some back end code that we've re-done in CGI. So is THAT what they're suing you for? Did you take their code and remake it in a different environment? That hasn't anything to do with Dreamweaver or HTML.
And we certainly don't have enough information about the situation to make any meaningful judgement. Was the first company paid? Did they have a contract, it would say who owns what. No advertising company would contract out work without saying who owns what because the likelyhood of reuse is too great.
The major question is: WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY SUING YOU FOR? Without the answer to that question, NO ONE here can do more than speculate inaccurately.
And please, if you don't know what the phrase "First North American Serial Rights" means, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE STOP GIVING LEGAL ADVICE (More like wild speculation)....
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
This company suing sounds really ridiculous. I really wish that judges would hand down huge penalties to companies/people like this when it is determined they were just trying to get revenge or intimidate people. Having said that... I was wondering.. 1. Did any of the code have copyright notices? 2. Did the ad agency ever tell you there could be copyright/ownership issues? Sounds to me that the Ad agency should review its contracts! Every company I have ever dealt with basically requires that you sign away your life with regards to rights to your work product. Anyway the company suing is really stupid. When word gets around (and it always does!) no one will want to hire them.
I don't understand the people saying code can not be copywrited because they're not the ones or originally used it... which is quite ubsurd in my view. That's like saying.. you can not copywrite a book named "Cheese" because you're not the first to use that word. It's about in what order you put the words NOT the words you use. Of course, there are probobley 100's of ways to look at it.. but I'd imagine that the issue in this case would not be the html, rather any graphics the original company did. I'm not saying this guy is guilty -- just saying that if Company X never gave rights to their work to the advertising agency (they probobley did), this guy, or at least the ad agency, could be in trouble..
You may want to seek legal advice from some lawyers on ExpertCentral.com. One of their expert lawyers gave some excellent advice in assisting me in some legal matters and I was quite pleased.
It's worth a shot on getting a third opinion than from the advertising firm's lawyers and Slashdot.
- Detritus
"I never really liked computers, but then the server went down on me"
When, oh when, will people stop asking for legal advice on Slashdot?
probably a few days before ACs begin posting insightful, interesting first posts...
Not only are the odds in favor of getting dozens of not-necessarily-correct opinions from non-lawyers very high, but I consider it extremely unlikely that any lawyer who does read this is going to give out free advice.
So what?
I doubt most people asking for "legal advice" are really looking for something that will hold up in court. Perhaps the original question should have been "Should HTML be copyrightable?" That's much more interesting, falls within the realm of everyone here, and still serves the original purpose of this topic - to get the kind of feedback, moral support, and entertaining bitching that real lawyers (who are already involved) don't provide.
I personally see 3 elements to the issue:
(1) the actual info being marked-up
(2) the design (layout, javascript, DB-integration, etc)
(3) html tags
(1) the info
Just as copyrighteous as a book, magazine article, or painting. IANAL, IANAMoron either, and that clearly belongs to the site's owner. So it isn't the issue. BTW, I don't want to get into a discussion about whether copyright itself is valid or obsolete.
(2) the design
I think this is the sticky point. For something complicated like, say, the architect's plans for the Empire State Building or the bloated code that is my operating system (I'll give you one guess...), it seems like that should be copyrightable. For something simple like a plain drinking glass, it definitely looks like it shouldn't be.
Where's the line? I saw some pretty innovative stuff on a site featuring 5 KB websites - even a 5040 or so byte e-commerce site. That's impressive, and I feel like it should get copyright protection. Then I look at the crappy website my friend made (great guy, no html skills) and think "no way!" Shouldn't there be some hard and fast rule? Ideas?
(3) html tags
Obviously not, but it would be fun to see someone (w3c?) go around suing everyone using table tags... :-)
Anyway, the incompetent prior developer is probably making a claim on #2. Should that be valid or invalid? Or somewhere in between?
(secretly hoping not valid, having ganked a whole lot of html code...hmmm, maybe Slashdot has something clever I can steal ;-)
I'm killing time, time's killing me
~ Kyle
seems to me that i'd be screwed, because although they seem to want people to use the code, they still have copyrights on it.
muffin
Hasn't everyone been following the story of the professor that was being sued by the government for putting a single line of Perl code on his web page? The code was a rudimentary form of encryption and that was why he was being sued.
The government lost because it was argued that computer code is not separate from the English language it was written in. Therefore, HTML most certainly can be copyrighted. Why the hell not? To a human, a printed HTML page is purely text. Only when it is run through a computer does it turn into something different.
CODE and CONTENT are two different things. We're talking about CODE. Right?
I agree with most of you guys, it seems to me that HTML is pretty damn un-copyrightable. What about all the free code sites, and all the O'Reilly books? Web Design is my job - please, whatever happens, don't let them take my <br> tag! My God, how would I feed my family?
The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
The copyright law grants AUTHORS copyright immediately they write their text (in any medium), and HTML is not (properly understood) coding or programming. The presumption, unless stated in a contract to the contrary, is that AUTHORS retain all rights to their text. Exceptions: work for hire, and screenplays (where producer has to own the text for various reasons). In both exceptions, the writer must be paid more than for normal text in the expectation that for writers, retention of their right to resell is part of the value of their work.
Now, if you really mean you altered scripts embedded, or dynamic HTML, or the like, you may have a case. But if you basically reused the person's (company's) text, you may well be in violation of their copyright.
I am primarily a writer (a documentation specialist) who treats Web sites as just another type of document when I produce one. Last year, I created (and illustrated) a Web site for a company, and uploaded it, and then asked the owner if it really made sense for me to handle the promotion (at a high rate of pay), or he would hire someone else to do that stuff for him. He, as I hoped, hired someone else to do the promotion (i.e., most of the placement with search engines, etc.). Note that I had already constructed several "gateway" pages so basically anyone could promote the site, too!
So this so-called professional designer who supposedly offered my client his promotional expertise, to whom I gave the password for the site, then changed ONLY the banner and background (replacing them with ones I considered very inferior!). Next he removed my own personal copyright statements, and represented the site as his work!
Well, it isn't. I wrote that site -- especially all its text. I did not give up my copyright by specifying it was a "work for hire" because a lot of what I wrote is reusable. (I have performed many works for hire, normally in cases where the work entails proprietary secrets or is so specific for that client it cannot be reusable, AND I am paid adequately for giving up my copyright to the material.) One of these days, I'll get around to suing that momzer....
Occasionally, contractors are brought in to do work without any actual contract. It's weird, but it can happen. After it happened to us once (my consulting firm billed four to six people to a client for nearly two years without a contract ... and they paid us regularly!) we looked into the law. In such circumstances, the "contractors" retain ownership of the code they've developed, although the customer can usually claim the right to a license to use the software for a reasonable period.
Also, it's not that uncommon for contracts to explicitly allow for the developers to retain ownership.
---glv
<tr>
<td><td>
</tr>
</TABLE>
© 2000, cDarwin. All rights reserved.
And don't even think about using this to produce a derivative work!
--
Socrates was asked where he was from. He replied not "Athens," but "The world."
Sure HTML is copywriteable. You just want to make sure that your posterior is adequately covered. So by the numbers;
1. Get your own lawyer.
2. Determine if the part of the code that you used was itself copywriteable. That is, if you only kept simple HTML boiler plate to support functions you wrote, it will be much harder for them to claim it as their intellectual property... that is, you could just go run out and get the dev. application yourself, generate identical code, and it would have been your generation. In fact that may settle the case, tell the judge that you didn't realize that this was "Their code... and that you'll just go out by the generator and roll it yourself."
3. Counter sue on the grounds that their suit is a frivolous personal attack designed to deny you of fair compensation for cleaning up their mess. Sue them for the cost of your lawyer, lost productivity, and any other obvious costs you can justify.
4. Talk to your lawyer to see if you ca have their case dismissed on the grounds that they don't own the HTML... the company you work for does.
You'll get a lot of interesting takes from folks who have a variing degree of legal knowlege. The best advice is to first get some personal representation.
Anne Marie
"... they didn't do any design, and any code they had was generated by a commercial program!"
I believe the fact that they used a commercial program is irrelevant.
for example:
If some artist created something in photoshop they dont own the rights to it, but if they used the gimp they do?
If you create a website in wordpad then your rights to the work are somehow lessened because you didn't use vi?
I have a friend that is a very good artist, but he has the technical skills of a goat. He uses front page or something simular to do web page design. He turns out some nice stuff, but he shouldnt hold the rights to it because it wasnt done with vi.
john
-- john
Secondly, copyright EXPLICITLY covers a specific organisation of data. No other organisation, even of the same data, is covered by copyright. That's why dictionary writers can't sue Slashdot posters.
Lastly, code generated by a code generator falls under the code generator's licence, NOT the licence of the person using it.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
If you go out and buy Pillsbury frozen chocolate chip cookies and you bake them. Did you really MAKE those cookies?
:)
I don't know about you, but I'm kinda gettin sick of this whole "copyright infringment" thing. Screw copyrights
-brain
I think this becomes clearer if we separate content and formatting. There is no question that content is copyrightable, and according to the questioner all the content was created by the ad agency and is therefore owned by the ad agency.
The HTML is formatting instructions put around the ad agency content. There are a couple ways to attack this, either way is nto good for the ex-contractors:
1) Formatting is not copyrightable, just like look and feel (MS vs Apple). Therefore the ex-contractors don't have a case.
2) Since, all the content is owned by the ad agency this makes the web site a derived work owned by the ad agency. Again, no case for ex-contractors.
The only monkey wrench here would be any java, javascript, or other scripts/programs. These would be covered by the same copyright laws that cover all program code. So, whatever the law says about code created by contractors woudl apply here. (Don't know what that is.)
I am not a lawyer!!
Dastardly
The basis of copyright law is to strike a balance between providing authors or publishers enought control so that they're motivated to create and disseminate, and to limit control so society benefits from access to works. If you could copyright html then what kind of web would we have? It would be like trying to copyright grammar. What web designer out there didn't learn from looking at and borrowing others code? It's fair use in my book.
Program code is instructions to a computer. HTML is program code. So is VB Script, or holes on paper tape. It may not be real programming, but it's programming of sorts. Isn't the binary copyrightable even if it was written in C? If I translate the movie "First Contact" into Greek, it is still a violation of copyright.
Even if it's not program code, it is still a copyrightable expression.
The main issue is that you hired him to write this for you. Most people have a work hire hire contract in the agreement. This will be the main issue.
Some tactics to consider. In deposition, ask why certain HTML coding was done in different ways. That will make him look like a fool. It may give you the argument of him just typing advertising copy into a HTML word processor.
Did you get a refund for the whole amount? If he was creating a product, they never finished to product that they were paid to do.
Fight Spammers!
HTML is not copyrightable per se but any specific instance of information about company X is.
From a legal course that I took in Engineering (yes, some schools teach engineers law) if they can link your work to their site, they have a case. Otherwise you shouldn't worry.
If it is automatically generated code then you can argue fair use and that the copyright holder is not company X but Microsoft, Adobe or whoever wrote the program. Since most of these companies waive any right to this code, then it really is your own.
But then again Amazon is suing Barnes and Noble for something that is unpatentable. As others have said, get a good lawyer.
How can you copyright anything created with paint? Anyone can take some paints, which were generated by a paint factory and slap them onto a canvas, how is that copyrightable? HTML is the medium for art to be expressed upon.
How do so many idiots end up on slashdot?
HTML is not a fucking bridge. You can't stick different text and images into a bridge and put it over a few more rivers.
There should be an ask slashdot about who can come up with the least applicable analogy...
Another fucking retard.
Even if it is a creative work, Chris Redd has re-written most of it (it's not the design studio's work any more), and most important of all, it was a work for hire and the client owns it (unless there was explicit contractual language to the contrary). Company X should eventually lose their shirt in court in a countersuit for frivolous prosecution.
--
This post made from 100% post-consumer recycled magnetic
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
the only thing you may have to look out for is whether or not its a "work of "art". If the website was commissioned, it could be considered the owner of the "creator". Its _highly_ unlikely it would be viewed that way but stranger things have happened.
If they can copyright HTML, can I copyright English?
My wife is a writer, so I know a little something about copyrights. If the first company had a contract which specified that they retain all rights to the code they produced, except specific rights granted to the ad agency, then you have a problem. Otherwise, this falls under the rubric of "work made for hire" and the ad agency owns all rights to it. It all depends on the language of the contract.
I wonder why the lawyers find it necessary to grill you. But IANAL, and I do know that lawyers like to cover every possible angle on a case. Good luck.
And the brethren went away edified.
IANAL, but I have studied this particular issue as a layman. HTML *can* be copyrighted since it is a "creative expression" "reduced to tangible form."
About the only thing that *can't* be copyrighted is something with a "unique expression." Bit patterns for computer opcodes can't be copyrighted (only an 0x84ce adds the contents of the bx and cx register on some hypothetical processor); phone numbers can't be copyrighted (only 303-555-1212 gets Debbie Smith), but the symbolic name "add" and the font face/point size/etc in a phone book can and have been copyrighted.... and I pick these particular examples because they are both well-known legal cases covered in my software engineering class.
HTML is pretty limited, but it still gives the author a significant amount of flexibility. He could use bold vs. italics, strong vs. emphasis, different fonts, different point sizes, plain lists vs enumated lists vs tables vs definitions, etc. HTML is clearly much more expressive than the conventions used in phone books, and the copyright on the latter has survived court challenges. Therefore, there's no doubt that any non-trivial HTML code can be protected by copyright law.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
There have been numerous LONG discussions of this very issue, specifically relating to HTML/site design/site construction on the HTML-Business list at HWG.org (HWG = HTML Writer's Guild, not Horny White Guys). If anyone is interested, the discussions are in a searchable archive.
While there's lots of angst and chest beating (very entertaining), it boils down to getting a lawyer well-versed in copyright law to help you develop a STRONG contract.
A frequent contributor to this discussion there is Ivan Hoffman, whose web site is a good jumping off spot for solid advice. YMMV, of course.
According to my ex-GF the lawyer, one of the basic principles of tort law is "join everyone, claim everything". You can always have claims or defendants dismissed from the action, but if you don't name somebody at the outset you can't add them to the suit later absent some very special circumstances (it's hardly fair, even by biased legal principles, to have part of a case tried and then add defendants who weren't even notified at the beginning and were unable to have their interests represented). Chris should probably have his own lawyer pleading his case, and move to dismiss him from the action. Oh, did I mention IANAL? I just dated one for a couple of years.
--
This post made from 100% post-consumer recycled magnetic
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
If the best these folks could do is give the client an incomplete or broken web page, perhaps that represents the sum total of their dizzying intellect. In that light, I can see where they'd want to protect it. But then, I always try to see the other guy's point of view.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
I'm involved in a lawsuit like this as well. I am suing someone from a rival company for using the same formatting that I used in one of their MS Word documents.
Anyways, all stupidity aside, what's the different between the two? HTML is just a way to make your content look fancier, and formatting in word processing program does the same thing. This is a major load of crap.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
It's not what it is, it's something else.
HTML code that you (or a computer program you command) produce is most certainly copyrightable, just as source code is. The data (content) inside is also copyrightable, but a blanket copyright covers both.
The precedent of copyrighting code was established in a lawsuit between Apple Computer and Franklin Computer in 1983.
Example: If you created a web site using Yahoo's home page as a base, and changed all the words and all the graphics, you would still be liabel for copyright infringement.
How this pertains to this partocular case depends entirely onthe arrangement between you, the advertising agency, and the end client.
Kevin Fox
Kevin Fox
I usually split a license so that either I, the designer, or the company which hired me can either use the code as we like. Usually content is retained by the company with permission for me to use it in exact form only (for showing new potential clients etc). As a lot of the HTML is generated from my personal PHP libraries there isn't really much for them to own as far as code goes.
;>
Being that I usually will put together a good middle sized web site for $100 including hosting and domain registration few companies are very bossy on the subject. I can create a site and have it hosted for an entire year for $500 which sure beats the rest of their marketing budget.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
*Augh*
The Copyright Office is refering to things like microprocessor opcodes, phone numbers, street addresses, etc.
Believe it or not, some companies have tried to copyright all of these items (well, at least the first two) as a backend way to eliminate competition. The copyrights on the symbolic opcodes (in assembers), on the style of phone books, etc., were upheld, but anything which is a "unique expression" wasn't upheld.
In a concrete example, "add" can be copyrighted because someone else will use "adi" (add integers) and someone else will use "adds" (add short values). But the binary bit pattern 0x80ec *can't* be copyrighted since that pattern, *alone*, does the desired act. Semiconductor manufacturers can't get an exclusive lock on assemblers/compilers via copyright law alone.
Ditto different phone book publishers can use different styles of presentation of the directory information, but all phone books must show the same number associated with the same customer. Your baby bell can't prevent other companies from publishing competing phone books - a major source of revenue from yellow pages advertising.
As for HTML, remember that what we casually call "HTML" is actually other text - clearly copyrighted text - which is marked up in some manner. Stylesheets *can* be copyrighted, and these copyrights have held up in court (see the phone book example mentioned above), but in all cases the tags should not be visible to the end user - only the text being marked up. Text which is clearly protected by copyright.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
For your information!
I have copyright ownership of the <p> and <br> tags. If you are currently using these tags, please stop, or else I will find you and sue you. Failure to believe this post will only make you a better person.
"I used to be an agnostic, but now I'm not so sure..."
If they did half a job and you had to finish the rest it sounds like they have problems with the ad agency and not you. I personllay would let the lawyers fight it out.
HTML itself may be copywritghtable, but did they actually copywright the code or are they just claiming copywright iolation? If they actually have a copywright then they have a case. If they did not they have a flimsy case.
send flames > /dev/null
Only 'flamers' flame!
While what happened in your class was pretty clearly cheating (sale of results by one student), I'm bothered by similar stories I hear in which several students collaborate on methods, and tend to converge on similar (though usually not identical) code.
IMO, this second case is a valuable lesson in the power of group development, sharing ideas, and the open source methods described by Eric Raymond in The Cathedral and the Bazaar. Much more valuable than the typical function-and-methods lessons taught in CS programs. Education has the problem of trying to assign credit for work performed, but an enlightened instructor could probably work out some compromise method.
What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
Scope out Kuro5hin
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
Classic ad agency problem.
You paid them to make it, so it's yours to with what you will..
We made it, so they can't use it again without paying again...
It's way worse in the digital realm. If an agency makes a web site, can you take the graphics and use them in a glossy? If you made a big backend for a customer site, can you use it for a different customer? Ick..
Actually, Company X does have a small legal leg to stand on. When you, as Company Y, hire Company X to build your website you purchase a website. NOT the source code. The courts have continuously upheld that the source code belongs to the company that wrote it, in this case Company X, unless otherwise defined by contract. So when you write a piece of code (in this case HTML) for somebody else under a contract situation, unless you specifically sign over the rights to the source code you own it. Also, if the company that hired you did not pay Company X for their work, then you've got a whole different issue to contend with -- you're using "software" (i.e. the website they worked on) without purchasing it from them. Now, should Company X be suing you? Probably not. If they are truly interested in a lawsuit instead of a piss-fight, they should be suing the company that hired them then hired you. After all, where did you get the code from to begin with? Company X or the company that hired you to finish the website?
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HTML is code , so it's copyrightable.
However, IMHO in your case the question is if they own anything what do they own?
The html document's content,design/style wasn't there's so don't own that.
You rewrote al the non-html code so they don't own that.
You rewrote a lot of the html so they don't own that.
So the question is what is left what they could possibly own.
(The fact that they used dreamware doesn't mean anything.
It's like the output of a compiler, the output is as much copyrighted as the source code)
If they own anything does it matter? They did know you were going to put there html online.
So that there code was going to be distributed wasn't any supprise to them.
Also the fact that the content of webpages change, and so the html code changes
was also no supprise to them.
They did recieve money
So as i see it, if they own the code, they licensed it under a license were it's OK to
distributed the code and change the code.
So I don't see how they could win this.
( If you lose the next thing we see is a secretary going after her/his bos
because she claims to own parts of the copyright of a letter her bos dictated )
If you are shown to have used copyrighted material of the first company then since the advertising agency failed to advise you they didnt own the code you would be sueing them in turn.
Alan
That's the way I see this - when you encounter something new, is there any harm to see if someone else's already experienced the same situation?
/. for legal advise, god help 'em. If it's yet another resource to make use of, why not put it to use?
Think of the coding paradigm - if someone's already written a library routine that does what you want, why reinvent it?
If they rely solely on
HTML, like any other authored content, is absolutely copyrightable. There was an argument I read above that declared that HTML isn't copyrightable, since all the tags and code used has been used before. But that's true of the english language, so that's an absurd argument. If the advertising company was really stupid, like, say, drew up their own contract without any legal help, then it is entirely possible that the HTML code does in fact belong to the company that authored it. But this is very unlikely, as such a copyright, unlicensed, would prohibit this advertising company from even using the code on their site. Not very useful, to be sure. I should point out here, that non-contract jobs done for hire are always the property of the employer. Contract jobs, however, depend on the language of the contract to implicitly declare it so. However, I've never heard of a contract that did otherwise.
- what were the terms of dismissing CompanyX? You said they were unable to finish the job. Did you pay them for the work they performed? If not, you can't really use the work they did in your project.
- HTML is not code. I don't think any sort of intellectual property laws apply to HTML. You can read the HTML from any site, even the ones who do lame things like using framesets to hide it. If it was just the HTML, not original content owned by CompanyX, they don't have a leg to stand on. You might be facing different issues if there is Javascript, ASP, or other actual code there. But thats assumming CompanyX copyrighted it and took steps to protect it, a big assumption given their lack of expertise.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
Hi!
First off, get thee to a lawyer. BUT not just any lawyer. Find a lawyer with significant experience with intellectual property law, particularly regarding programming issues. I would strongly suggest contacting your local chapter of the Independent Computer Consultants of America and asking for referrals to lawyers familiar with the IP issues facing consultants.
There have been some posts here that have suggested that HTML can't be copyrighted--that's probably not true. At the very least it is not legally certain, which is worse. When something is legally defined, it is generally tough to litigate. When something is legally vague, the lawyers come out in droves. And your client's insurance company (who is fighting this) has an incentive to settle to make the suit go away. And part of that incentive is that they can ask your homeowners' insurance carrier to chip in part of the settlement cost.
Here's the problem: computer source code generally is protected by copyright. I have, for instance, successfully pressured a recalcitrant client into paying up by threatening an action for infringement. But--copyright generally only protects the "creative work". The courts generally do not view the results of machine output as being protected by copyright. So the code you wrote by hand is probably protected--the code generated by the DreamWeaver guys probably is not.
Simple analogy:
What is the most commonly used programming language in the world today? The answer isn't Visual Basic, Perl, or C++. It is PostScript. PostScript is a complete programming language, and the output from your PostScript printer driver is actually a program that is executed by an interpreter running on the output device (usually your printer, but there are other kinds of PostScript interpreters). I have produced very carefully-written programs in PostScript (years ago, for typesetting equipment calibration), and I charged good money for them. Those programs were creative work protected by copyright. On the other hand, the PostScript program generated by your printer driver to print this web page is just machine-generated output--where's the creativity? There isn't any creativity, so there's nothing in the PostScript code to copyright. Your text may be copyrightable, my text may be copyrightable, and Andover's little blurb at the bottom asserts that everything else on the page is copyrightable--but the PostScript program to print all of it is not copyrightable.
You might find it useful to mention this analogy to your client's lawyers. You can actually save the output from a PostScript printer driver to a file, and browse the program with a text editor. (If you'd like to do this, I can also give you some hand-written PostScript to make the distinction between the two. Contact me at if you want some help.) So long as the HTML code originated in DreamWeaver the creative work is the design of the page as it appears on the Browser. The machine output isn't their creative work, so they can't sue to protect it from infringement. The owner of that creative aspect is the publisher of DreamWeaver--they're just using the "machine".
All of that said, get thee to a lawyer! Is it a pain? Yup. Is it an expense? Yup. But it is definitely worth the bucks to be sure. And it is always worth the bucks to bring your own hired gun to the table, rather than depend upon the charity of somebody else's lawyers. They don't call 'em sharks for nothing--and when did you ever hear of a charitable shark?
Well with GNU Bison it was the case anything you created with it was GPL'd since it included GPL code (the Bison parser skeleton). I believe the fixed this by liberalizing the license on the parser skeleton. Now if an HTML creation tool inserts copyrighted code into the document, it very well could made the generated product fall under copyright of the tool owner. Does it? I am not sure, but it seems at least theoretically possible. Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
It all depends on what's in the contract. Others have suggested that the origional contractor must have assigned the rights to their creation or that the ad agency received the rights along with the code as part of the deliverable. This is not necessarly the case.
My wife and I run a small web-design shop that targets small, local mom-and-pop shops that otherwise couldn't afford a web presence. One of the first things my wife did when setting up shop was call the California Department of Revinue to get set up to handle sales tax. They informed her that as long as we don't actually deliver anything to the customer, like if we retain the rights to the HTML and host it ourselves, then we are not selling anything. Rather, we're providing a service and we don't have to charge sales tax. As most of our customers don't have the means to host the sites themselves, this is the route we've taken ad it's worked out well.
Many other good points have been made here. In particular, you should get your own laywer since the ad agency (who may be at fault for misrepresenting that they owned the rights) is going to look out for themselves. Also, HTML is just a form of written expression: what is really in question here is the content, any unique elements of the layout and possibably any unique executable content (i.e. java, javascript, etc.).
Of course, IANAL.
#include
-"Zow"
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My guess is that the original company is having a hard time collecting the full fee they negotiated from your employer.
Don't know if this has been mentioned, but:
Copyright literally is the right to reproduce -- to make copies. If HTML is intended for distribution over the web, then you've granted everyone the ability to copy it when you download the code.
Sure, it's different to download said files and modify them. But that would be even less prone to copywrite, since it is no longer the original copywriten work in the first place.
Maybe if you give someone the right to copy something, then you've given them the right to copy pieces of it (in your modified code).
just an extremist view. Not in the intent of the law, but interesting nonetheless.
The contract is CENTRAL to the issue.
The original web site design - even broken and incomplete - is a copyrightable work. Copyright is automatically with the actual author unless he has traded that right away in his contract - for instance: as a "work for hire".
If the author traded it to his consulting firm, then the consulting firm holds the copyright, unless THEY traded it in turn to the customer.
If the web designer/design house wrote the contract, you can bet that they kept all the rights except the right to use exactly the code they provided, unmodified. Assuming this is true, if the site wants upgrades, or even completion, they would have to go to the original firm.
It's like dealing with professional photographers. You own the prints, they own the negatives. Want more prints? Buy 'em from the photog. Don't copy 'em at the photo shop or you're in deep doo-doo. (If somebody else wants to use 'em he needs to buy 'em from the photog AND get permission from those photographed to use their image.)
Still assuming the speculation about the web design house writing the contract is correct: If the customer hired you to fix it, and you didn't redo it from scratch with a different "look and feel", you made a derivitave work. So you and/or the customer are infringing. Whether you personally are infringing separately or acting for the customer is an open issue. But if the only lawyers in this debate are the web designer's and the customer's, and you're named in the suit, you can bet you're about to spin in the wind.
GET YOUR OWN LAWYER! NOW!
Caveat: IANAL. So get your own lawyer and ask HIM!
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Inner Child Productions (mehampster@aol.com) owns Hampsterdance. Funny, the music was copied from Disney's Robin Hood, and the graphics reportedly came from Harvard hamster web sites, but the <html> is mehampster's. A different implementation (like Assassin's Hamster Blast) is a new work, not covered by mehampster's copyright. And a parody game written in C (such as my GUWAME Hampsterdeath) is definitely not a copy, right?.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Junger v. Daley recent decision.
<BR>
<BR>Code is speech.
<BR><BR>A precedent your lawyers need to be aware of!
<BR>
<BR>Use this...
<BR>
<BR>CODE is not considered to be anything but speech until after it is compiled and SINCE html can't really be compiled that I am aware of anyways...(what would that be? the H++ ahahaha)
<BR>
<BR>well, they - original company- have no grounds to SUE YOU on intellectual theft or otherwise.
<BR>
<BR>You, on the other hand, can have the company you work for sue them (original company) for a breech of contract and harassment, if applicable.
<BR>
<BR>later,
<BR>-m
"One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries." (A. A. Milne)
I guess the real question is did the advertising company pay Company X for the [partial] work it did. Either way, this sounds like it's their problem, not yours, as you were acting as an agent for the advertising agency.
The real issue is not who own the copyright of a piece of HTML code, the issue is, is there a copyright on HTML code at all.
HTML tags are in many way codes and codes are copyrightable. However HTML codes are not exactly program codes.
I am very interested in this issue because I have done something similar, but not in any commercial manner. In my personal homepage, I have used the HTML template used by X11.Org. Now can they sue me?? I have in my website given them credit for the actual design, but does that save me from getting sued if they decide to do so(heaven forbid!!)??
Manifest
Concerned
... "follow me" the wise man said, but he walked behind
In a related question -- Is it OK to clone someone's javascript, that is to make another javascript program which does the same thing, but is not based on the original code ?. In my specific problem the original code is quite trivial, so the new code can't be very different from the original code which opens up the posibility that the company owning the original code can argue that it's copied, especially since javascript source is easily obtained
The HTML itself can't be copyrighted, but I'd guess that the site design could be - which Company X had nothing to do with anyway.
Company X is so hock full of crap their eyes are brown.
-------
CAIMLAS
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I'm not a lawyer. I do know a bit about IP law as I do most of my work in the publishing industry and have to deal with rights issues every day. What you say above is entirely wrong. Almost every post on this article is completely clueless. The ones that make the most sense are those that say: "Get a lawyer!" There is an alternative (sort of): go get a few law books out of your local universitie's law library. It won't qualify you to go to court on these issues, but at least you'll have _some_ clue. Of course if you live in a remote part of Wyoming you won't be able ro do this, but in any moderately urban area you should be able to find basic books on IP law. But for godsakes stop talking out your ass. Someone might take you seriously. The key word here is derivative.
Well! I found your firewall extremely easy to breach. I was into your system in minutes. I think it wasn't very smart of you to use the same root password that I use. Gotta give you credit though- our taste in porn is very similar.
Notwithstanding speculations to the contrary posted in these letters, HTML code will be protected by copyright to the extent that it constitutes original expression fixed in tangible media.
The code will be owned by the individual or individuals who performed the fixation, unless it is a work made for hire. A WMFH can occur only in the case where: (1) it is performed by a geniune employee within the scope of employment; or (2) it is a particular class of work performeed subject to a written document expressly stating that it would be work made for hire.
YES, HTML and related code can be protected. The issue is not whether there can be protection, but rather, what is the scope of that protection. This is, notwithstanding what I have seen posted here to the contrary, a complex question that can turn either way depending upon a host of particular facts.
You should not consider relying upon anything posted here (including the preceding remarks), but should rely instead upon the advice of competent counsel who has considered these issues on your behalf. Anyone who insists that it is "obvious" how these issues will turn without further information is either ill-informed or is furthering an agenda unrelated to your best wishes.
Best regards
Well, I am not sure it is an open and shut case. If the same copyright rules that apply to print apply to HTML then they may have a case. It has long been established in the print industry that the customer only owns rights to the visual end result they paid for but not the foundation work. For instance: If a customer hires me to design an ad for them they are paying for the ad. They have no rights to the electronic files I created, the films burned to print them, etc unless otherwise stated in our agreement. Customers are usually not given these files to keep them from taking my work to a competitor and reusing it. Given that you HAVE to give the HTML files to the customer I don't know if they would be afforded the same protection. Even if you give the electronic copies of an ad to a customer they do not have the right to use it but for the agreed upon purpose (to get the ad printed that time) but can be sued if they later use it or derivative works without consent. Perhaps the agency should sue them for breach of contract for not delivering what they paid for. ianal, but I do think they may have some claim there. Interesting to see how this will play out.
The issue here is probably that the ad agency contracted company X to make a website. The contract can say about IP rights: 1) nothing (have fun!), 2) belongs to ad agency, 3) belongs to company X, or 4) some combination.
Example:Our customer hires us to design a website. The customer rejects the first deliverable twice, ending the contract. We get to keep the 1/3 of the payment that we got up front and all the code. Should the customer accept the first deliverable, we get the second 1/3 payment, the customer gets ownership of the code that he accepted, and the above drama ensues for the final deliverable.
If the contract got terminated, odds are very, very good that company X owns all the rights to everything they did. You may then have a defense should it arise that company X owns everything. You can probably state that they misrepresented any materials they provided to you.
P.S. make sure you have a lawyer of your own. If you do not, you are a fallguy. Ask the lawyer if he is representing you, or the ad agency. A lawyer representing the ad agency will not point out that his client has misrepresented materials unless you somehow get him on the stand under oath.
See that "Preview" button?
Are you sure?
Then, if I run copyrighted.c through a preprocessor, the result is not copyrighted?
Or if I paint a penguin in Gimp and save it as a
I think that anything you can do with DreamWeaver shows "creative work", even the configuration files.
I think the crux is in what their contract said (or didn't say) about the property of the result.
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Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
-- Faré @ TUNES.org
-- Faré @ TUNES.org
Reflection & Cybernet
That said, HTML in itself is no more (C)-able than source code in any other language (C, C++, Perl, Chinese, etc...). HTML is an internationally agreed upon standard subset of SGML, another ISO standardized language for data formatting.
However, if they had done something truely novel or innovative (which I doubt, since you state that their code was produced by commercially available software) they might be able to apply for Patent. Since HTML is so extensively documented in the public arena it is unlikely that any such patent application would pass the scrutiny of even the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. ;-)
My reasonably well informed laymans legal opinion is that HTML code in and of itself is not (C)-able. The information that is being presented may or may not be (C)-able by the agency that owns it.
Let them sue. In the mean time, investigate the "nuisance law suite" laws in your area and see if you can bring a counter suit to recover every cent this will cost you and your client plus punitive damages for being idiots. Seek a summary judgement so it doesn't have to take up any real court time.
My office has been taken over by iPod people.
The company I work for is going through a somewhat similar legal battle. We are using php to dynamically generate web pages filled with business listing on different localities around the country. A competitor took the generated HTML and copied it onto a static page complete with my spelling mistakes, and a couple of listings that fell out of alphabetical order (it was the first rendition posted). We have the html printed out, and dated/notarized, but how do you explain to the layman(jury) that this is stealing? we had several weeks into collecting this data, and they swiped it in two seconds! As for ownership of html/websites, My company goes by the understanding that until the last bill is paid, entire ownership(minus any customer supplied images/text) is owned by us, and once the final bill is paid, the customer takes complete ownership. Just like when you drop your car off at the garage.
regards,
Chiaben
"If voting could really change things, it would be illegal. " - Revolution Books, NY
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,
but even then only if the parties agree in writing that the work is a work made for hire.
I'm in no way qualified to comment on the law but the posting that urges you to get your own lawyer is absolutely right! I hope you're either Incorporated or an LLC and have decent Liability insurance. If not, your rear could be way more exposed than you'd like.
17 U.S.C. 201 Part b - Works made for hire
:)
In the case of works made for hire, the employer or other person for whom the work was prepared is considered the author for purposes of this title, and, unless the parties have expressly agreed otherwise in a written instrument signed by them, owns all of the rights comprised in the copyright.
No copyright is claimed in government or public domain material.
See... there's that Keene State College education kicking in...
my opinion isn't what matters. :)
:) ), the copyright of derived work is owned by the holder of the copyright for the original work, even if they aren't the authors of the derived one.
Nor mine
My opinions:
In your example, the limerick is copyrightable (you agreed), by you if you didn't copy it from some troll. And if it is translated to Japanese, converted to EBCDIC, printed, engraved on stone, incorporated as a comment in a C program, or sent as a GIF or a PostScript program, then the result is a derived work.
And if I understood correctly the rants on GPL (I got my legal education from Slashdot
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Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
---and if anyone uses it or anything like it I will sue you!
---and just because you're writing code on M$ doesn't mean you are not liable!
---also the key of C! If you write music I contend that you are simply transposing my work!
This
If the original contractor was paid for the time they spent and the incomplete work they did, then it presumably becomes the property of the Ad Agency
Now if as a result of the contractors' inability to do the job, they weren't paid, or payment is still in dispute, then it seems quite possible that their work remains their own.
If this weren't the case then all a client needs to do to get free code is to fire the contractors just before delivery.
TomV
Well, damn, everyone seems to be breaking into it nowadays.
At least I can test the security of it, trouble is the MODERATORS seem to love marking me offtopic. I should have posted the woodpecker comment as an AC.
I will probably get marked down for this reply too. I really wish the moderators would READ the guidelines....
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
Anything you do that has some sort of tangible (or semi-tangible) form can be copyrighted. If you use a chainsaw to carve an ice sculpture, you can copyright that (even if you borrowed the chainsaw!, imagine that!). If you use photoshop to create an image, you can copyright it. If you use Dreamweaver to create a web page, bang copyrighted. If you create an image or an essay or report or whatever, and you convert it to .ps or .pdf form, bang copyrighted.
And, under modern US copyright law all it takes to copyright something is to say something akin to "I assert copyright protection for this work". That's it and it's done. If someone disputes that then you can go to court and wrangle over it, but you don't have to send away or buy a copyright, copyright's are free. It's kinda like a mining claim for the information universe.
Now, in this case, it would seem that if you offer your services for hire, then the contractor owns the copyrights to your work (unless a contract stipulates contrariwise). Also, the "artist" can still create similar works (since the "look and feel / design" was not Patented), but he can't use any of the original work (i.e. no copy/paste).
My work here is done.
(flies off into the sunset)
Microsoft has in fact (years ago) come up with a "compiled html file" format, which surprisingly enough requires IE 4.0 or later.