In short, no. There is no reason why you should file for a copyright. In the United States and most industrialized nations, all intellectual property is automatically copyrighted from the data of creation. So as long as you have proof that your content was created on a certain date– Google Search’s cache can often provide this– you’re good to go. Filing a copyright for something as quickly-changing as a website would be a needless hassle and expensive.

Both website owners and web hosting companies need to be aware of the copyright laws of the countries where they do business. There have been notable news stories surrounding copyright infringement of music and movies, where web hosts were required to shut down the servers of file sharing sites and hand over their hard drives.

The general rule is that if a copyright notice is displayed, you cannot use content from someone else without permission. If no copyright notice is displayed, you should assume that the work is copyrighted and still avoid using it. The exceptions are works released to the Public Domain, under a Creative Commons licensed, or with some other license that permits reuse and redistribution.

Photo Source: Flickr

If you want the copyright to content created by someone else, even if they write or take photos for your site, you must get their signed written permission. In other words, they must sign over their copyright to you. In either case, the copyright statement in the footer of your website should indicate that you or your business owns the rights. If you do not want anyone to use your content, you can leave the default copyright clause accepted in most countries: “All Rights Reserved.”

In some circumstances, however, you may want to give others certain permissions to use your work. In such a case, you can hire a lawyer to create your own complex license or use a Creative Commons license, which allows you to have “Some Rights Reserved” but also lend some rights to others for the usage you specify. This site, for example, is released under such a license.

Photo Source: Flickr

Keep in mind that copyright infringement is illegal and although hosts aren’t responsible for their customer’s actions, they can be held liable for not putting an end to illicit activity in a timely manner. If your host gets a complaint from a copyright holder, you could find yourself kicked off their servers and out any deposits or fees paid.

This is the case for most North American and European hosts. Web hosting companies in developing countries are often much less stringent about the enforcement of copyright law.

Ultimately, if a year passes without a cease of pirating activities, Ofcom would have the authority to order ISPs to cap the user’s Internet usage. The film and music industries around the world has long called for stricter measures to stop piracy, particularly with the advent of BitTorrent, a peer-to-peer file sharing system without any centralized servers. The law still has to pass through Parliament, and there will undoubtedly be serious concerns about privacy.

This move is part of a larger £200 million plan being initiated to connect everyone in the UK to high-speed Internet access by 2012. In the United States, bandwidth capping has been met with staunch opposition, forcing service providers to change their planned restrictions. A law is now moving through U.S. Congress that would place regulations on capping. France has announced plans to completely ban Internet pirates from access after three offenses. In Sweeden, owners of the popular torrent sharing site The Pirate Bay were convicted of copyright infringement and sentenced to prison, pending appeal.

Source: Wall Street Journal
Photo: Flickr

The UK government has decided to increase the maximum fines in all copyright and IP cases to £50,000, an increase from £5,000 in England and Wales and £10,000 in Scotland. According to the report, this is all in response to consultation and suggestions from the public.

“On the introduction of an exceptional statutory maxima [higher fine caps], responses were generally positive, believing it would serve as a deterrent for would-be offenders,” said the IPO’s report on the consultation.

“There was concern that this level of penalty should be used with care and only when the case required it,” said the IPO’s report. “A few responses thought that exceptional statutory maxima should be set in accordance with the seriousness of the offence and the profit gained. Several noted that the courts would need to set a fine appropriate to the circumstances for each case.”

Source: The Register
Photo: Flickr