Copyright Issues

It should go without saying that you need to create your own content. You can't just copy everything from someone else's web site.

Unfortunately, that is done all too often. I've had entire web sites copied from me, word for word. It's unnerving. It's also illegal. I have succeeded in having more than one hosting account terminated because of plagairism.

When the Internet was younger it seemed that a sure way to succeed was to copy exactly what others were doing. Some webmasters went to the search engines and searched for the keywords that were relevant to what their web site was about. Then they took the number one site and copied it, word for word, and in turn, got the number one or two position themselves.

It doesn't work that way anymore. Fortunately. It will reward you much better to create excellent content for your site over time and through research. You'll get those high positions and you'll maintain them, if you run an original and valuable web site.

Always use a copyright notice at the bottom of your page. Always use the copyright symbol "©". I generally use a line like this:

Of course I use my own company name, and I change the date every year. Even though the site might of been created two years ago, I've updated it regularly (you really have to do that!) and therefore it is new and fresh and copyrightable this year. Later, in the JavaScript section, I'll show you how to update that year date automatically so you don't even have to think about it

The above is all you really need although you may want to add "Protected by US and International Copyright Laws" or any of several other lines you may see from time to time around the web, or on other printed copyrighted works. It's up to you. Just be sure to have the copyright symbol and the word copyright with the date.

There is no need to submit a copy of the site, or anything else, to the Copyright Office. Times have changed since that was a requirement. For all purposes today, simply placing the copyright notice somewhere on your product is legal protection enough. I put it at the bottom of each and every page on every site I create.

Not a lot to say about this subject really, other than the importance of not taking content by copy/paste from other web sites.