Protect yourself and your work by copyrighting your website
Copyrighting a website establishes your rights over the work contained within that website, including the content, artwork, music and audiovisual material on the site. Registering a website copyright with the US Copyright Office provides long-term assurance that you have legal options to obtain monetary damages should anyone copy or redistribute the work on your website without permission.
Can I copyright a website if I didn’t develop it on my own?
There are many ways to secure a copyright. For example, if several people contributed to the website, you can share the website’s copyright. If you are hiring someone to create a website for you and want to maintain ownership of the copyright, you can use a Work-For-Hire form.
It is also important to note that rarely does the copyright ownership of a work reflect everyone who has contributed to the work. Just because someone may have helped you debug some code or set up your hosting does not mean that they are entitled to a share of the copyright. You certainly can give credit to a contributer that helped you without providing them with a share of the copyright.
So what's covered?
Copyright protects works of original authorship. And in this sense, authorship can refer to writing, designing, programming and more. Depending on what constitutes the original authorship of your website, you may file a copyright for the graphic design of the site or for the content of the site.
Currently, you cannot file for both under one filing. You can, however, file two separate copyright applications for the same website, one for the content and one for the design.
What’s not covered?
Copyrighting a website does not copyright any software or program that may power the website. You can, however, copyright software independently of the website.
Copyrighting a website also does not apply copyright to underlying works. If your website sells greeting cards that you make, copyrighting the website will not protect your authorship on the greeting cards. If you use music that you wrote yourself, copyright your website will not protect your music.
Also, copyrights don’t apply to names. If you have given your website a notable name you may want to trademark the name.
Trust Click and Copyright to Copyright Your Website
Since 2000, Click and Copyright has been helping individuals secure copyright protection for their work. Trust Click and Copyright to secure your website copyright protection quickly and securely. In fact, we’re able to process most website copyright orders within 24 hours! Copyright your website today.