What aspects of your site are protectable?

Copyright protects original authorship fixed in tangible form. For works transmitted online, e.g., World Wide Web sites and homepages, FTP sites, Gopher sites, etc., the copyrightable authorship may consist of text, artwork, music, audiovisual material (including any sounds), sound recordings, etc.

Revisions and updates

Many works transmitted online are revised or updated frequently. For individual works, however, there is no blanket registration available to cover revisions published on multiple dates. A revised version for each daily revision may be registered separately, provided the revisions constitute copyrightable authorship. A separate application and filing fee would be required for each separately published update.

Databases

Under current U.S. copyright laws, copyright protection for databases is very limited. Unique and original displays and organizations of data can be protected, but the substantive information - the data itself - is not protected under current copyright law. The European Union, however, has taken steps to offer some additional database protections. See European Union Database Protections.

Must permissions be obtained when you link to or frame another site?

Generally, simply linking one web page to another does not infringe on any copyright that might attach to information on the linked page. Also, hyperlinking does not itself involve a violation of the Copyright Act because no copy is made merely as a result of the link. However, linking to or copying a web page that contains material known or suspected to be pirated from its copyrighted owner, without permission, may constitute contributory copyright infringement.

On the other hand, copying and "framing" content created by another person into your site may well involve copyright infringement. Framing should not be undertaken without consulting a copyright lawyer and probably obtaining permission.

Pitfalls in web site development agreements.

As you develop your web site, we can help you avoid potential pitfalls in such areas as:

• Ownership of web site content-see work for hire doctrine;
  


• Liability for infringing materials/content supplied to developer or as supplied by third parties;
  


• Infringement via links to other internet resources and framing issues;
  


• Who has authority to revise or make derivative works?
  


• Licensing to use trademarks, copyrighted content, rights of publicity;
  


• Potential exposure to consumer protection laws in foreign jurisdictions;
  


• Misappropriations of person's likeness for a commercial purpose;
  


• Domain name and search engine registration and infringing metatags;
  


• Who will host and maintain the site?
  


• Electronic Communications Privacy Act;
  


• Federal Privacy Protection Act; and
  


• Children's Online Privacy Protection Act.