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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.]
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."
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!
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.
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If a tree falls on an anonymous coward yelling 'first post' in the forest, does anybody hear?
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
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.
According to the old Macromedia EULA in my hand, Macromedia claims right of use to anything generated by it. You retain ownership and copyright, however.
There may be a monkey clicking the mouse and stamping at the keys, but the code doesn't just magically appear without said monkey.
.sig: Now legally binding!
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.
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?
erm...what's the difference?you have copyright and ownership but they (macromedia) still can use it? sounds a bit contradictionary to me.
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.
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!
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.
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
Aha! I knew those copyright courses would come in handy some day!
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.
When you are dealing with legal copyright issues "work for hire" may not mean what you think it means. While it is true that "work for hire" is presumed to belong to the employer rather than the employee unless otherwise specified in a contract, according to copyright law "work for hire" only applies to work created by employees, not contractors or consultants. Work written by contractors and consultants are presumed to belong to the contractor or consultant unless otherwise specified in their contract.
So, if I run a newspaper, any articles written by staff writers belong to the newspaper. Any articles commissioned from freelance writers belong to the writer. Of course, as a publisher I make damn sure that freelance writers sign all rights to commissioned articles over to me if I can.
It seems pretty clear that this HTML was not created by employees of the company so you'd have to check their contract to see if it assigned intellectual property rights to the company that hired them.
There is a copyright principle related to "value added". The person claiming the copyright has to "add value". This has prevented phone companies from copyrighting the telephone directory, for example. If all of the design and specification work was done by the company not the previous contractors and all of the HTMLing was done by Dreamweaver you may be able to argue that while they provided labour (like the telephone directory compilers) they haven't added intellectual value and thus cannot claim copyrights.
Hoping this helps,
Respectfully, David Tallan
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....
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
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)
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.
Actually, there is a site called lawguru.com that does exactly what you suggest. There may be others. I've used them a couple of times and have received good answers. It certainly would be a good place to go for the original poster because their answer certainly lies in the specifics of their case.
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.
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This post made from 100% post-consumer recycled magnetic
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
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.
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This post made from 100% post-consumer recycled magnetic
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
So if I use Photoshop to create some masterpiece (and maybe even Eyecandy and Kai's Power Tools for nifty effects), then it isn't a creative work? Or are you saying that HTML created using any program (even Notepad) is neither created nor unique?
That's not really analogous. The original workers created neither the artistic content (the ad agency did that) nor the actual HTML (Dreamweaver did that). Also, neither Photoshop nor Notepad create anything themselves, but merely render what is input. Dreamweaver actually creates an HTML page, where there was none before. From what I gather reading the posting, it is the HTML that is considered copyrighted. And it was Dreamweaver created that.
Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation
Information is not Knowledge
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
*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
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?!?"
Something very similar to this happened in a programming class I was in. We were learning the lisp language, and were using an oddball interpreter.
This interpreter had an idiosyncrasy where you would type in your function, and then when you used a procedure to decompile your function and send it out to the printer, to hand in, your function would include a little bit of internal boilerplate code that didn't do anything. I couldn't get rid of it, so I just turned in the assignment.
The next class, our instructor came in and handed back the papers. Everyone had an "F"!
She then explained to us that we had all obviously copied our assignment from one person, because almost of the assignments were nearly identical, with similar logical errors, but used different variable names, which was usual for this sort of assignment, but what had tipped her off to the cheating ring was that each and every program had the same, identical piece of meaningless, non-functional code! It took about 10 minutes to convince here that that little bit of meaningless code had been inserted by the compiler, and wasn't a sign of cheating.
The next thing she said came as a complete shock.
It turns out that there was a cheating ring going on. After our instructor made the incorrect assumption that that little no-op in each function was a sign of cheating, she went through the email spool, and actually found that most of the class were cheating! One student was selling completed homework assignments over email to the rest of the class, and the evidence was all there. Someone had the gall to complain that she had read their private email, and here response was, "Everyone who wants to contest this, see me after class, and we'll go to the Dean with the email printouts, your graded assignments, and see what happens." I approached her after class, ready to go the mat, because, goddammit, I wasn't cheating, and she immediately told me that she hadn't thought I had been in on the cheating ring, because my code was different from the people who did cheat, but I had been included in the 'F' list because my functions all had the same tell-tale code as the cheaters. I got my 'A'. To this day, I'm amazed that out of about 30 people, 25+ were cheating. Damn!
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?
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
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?
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?
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
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.
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CAIMLAS
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
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
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
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
Microsoft has in fact (years ago) come up with a "compiled html file" format, which surprisingly enough requires IE 4.0 or later.