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I have developed my first website and ready to publish to the internet. I'm confused with how the COPYRIGHT under the footer works? Do I just ...

  1. Show COPYRIGHT WEBSITE NAME at the footer?
  2. Not showing anything?
  3. Register my copyright before showing?

I have read so many posts discussing about the copyright, I'm still confuse. As different source seems to give different answer (Example, you need to register copyright with $35, you don't need copyright, etc..)

By far, this post here seems to be accepted by most. Can I confirm this is true?

You automatically have the copyright to any work you create.

Meaning that, I can simply just add my COPYRIGHT WEBSITE NAME in my website without any registration?

Tommy Leong
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1 Answers1

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N.B. IANAL (I am not a lawyer).

TLDR:

can [I] simply just add my COPYRIGHT WEBSITE NAME in my website without any registration?

Yes, you can. You don't need to register a work to use the © symbol on it.

One reason you may be reading conflicting information is because:

  • Copyright differs from one legal jurisdiction to the next.

See:

Copyright is a creation of law in each country, and therefore there is no such thing as an international copyright law. Nevertheless, nearly 180 countries have ratified a treaty – the Berne Convention, administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) – that sets a minimum set of standards for the protection of the rights of the creators of copyrighted works around the world.

Source: https://www.rightsdirect.com/international-copyright-basics/

How far your copyright extends and what actions you need to take to secure it will depend on where the work you intend to copyright is published.

For instance, in the UK, copyright operates as follows:

Copyright protects your work and stops others from using it without your permission.

You get copyright protection automatically - you don’t have to apply or pay a fee. There isn’t a register of copyright works in the UK.

You automatically get copyright protection when you create:

  • original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic work, including illustration and photography
  • original non-literary written work, such as software, web content and databases
  • sound and music recordings
  • film and television recordings
  • broadcasts
  • the layout of published editions of written, dramatic and musical works

You can mark your work with the copyright symbol (©), your name and the year of creation. Whether you mark the work or not doesn’t affect the level of protection you have.

Source: https://www.gov.uk/copyright

Further Reading:

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Rounin
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    Thanks Rounin for the details reply with example. It's glad to see the UK Gov make it simple with the statement You get copyright protection automatically - you don’t have to apply or pay a fee. There isn’t a register of copyright works in the UK. given. I'm from Malaysia, I bet we are having similar/close laws since we were once rule by British.

    You mentioned copyright extend depends on where my work intend to publish, but this is a website..how do we now define where I would like to publish? I'll be hosting with AWS on Singapore Server. Does that mean I'm publishing in Singapore or MY?

     – Tommy Leong Apr 22 '20 at 12:08
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    Appreciate for your help, thanks again. – Tommy Leong Apr 22 '20 at 12:23
  • "I'll be hosting with AWS on Singapore Server. Does that mean I'm publishing in Singapore or MY?" Yep. That's a really good question. (That's the kind of thing that lawyers argue about.) https://www.whoishostingthis.com/resources/copyright-guide/ (which I've also posted above) is a really good, really comprehensive guide to Copyright Law in 2020. After skim-reading much of it, it does not, as far as I can tell even touch upon which jurisdiction applies when an internet document is written & uploaded in one location to a server in another location and downloaded & read in a third location. – Rounin Apr 22 '20 at 14:39