I’ve been learning a little here any there about IP, copyrights, licenses and so forth. Not much, but enough to know that I don’t know exactly what I want to do. I do a little web design. That means I’m writing original html/xhtml code, javascript code, content, creating original images, etc. etc. I’m confused as to whether or not to use a copyright notice on my website. Or should I use a license such as this one (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/)? I was reading a bit about this license and it doesn’t recommend use for software. IMO a website, especially one that include scripting or programming, would be closer to programming than say, a book. So I’m just asking, which route should I go? As of the moment I simply have a non-copyright statement, saying isn’t copyright. But I fear this is NOT the solution. Would this allow someone else to simply come in and claim the rights to my website? That wouldn’t be good. So, should I try to find a good software open source type license, use one like the one I linked, simply have no notice, or what?
No.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Kinsella suggests using the share-alike license. I posted about that here as well.
That is for books though, I’m not sure why it might differ for websites.
As of the moment I simply have a non-copyright statement, saying isn’t copyright. But I fear this is NOT the solution. Would this allow someone else to simply come in and claim the rights to my website?
No, assuming you pay for your own hosting and own your domain. You need to be careful to renew your domain registration, but really only if someone is being predatory to “steal” it. More likely, you have a small number of visitors with no interest in messing with you.
See the article, Man who received speeding ticket acquires city police domain name
It’s true it is a small website with few if any visitors, but I’d still like it to be correct. I know about domain registration and hosting, just not about copyright laws. I used to simply throw a copyright at the bottom of websites I made but after thinking about IP and such I decided I didn’t want to copyright my websites, or at least not MY website.
I understand that you automatically own a copyright on the original content on your website whether you want it or not. The best way to fight this is by registering for a Creative Commons attribution license, here: http://creativecommons.org/choose/
I have a few websites. I have never worried about copyright. If someone came in and stole your code, you have no recourse anyway. You’re unlikely to create anything radically new in html or javascript. And if they did steal your content, you could file a DMCA complaint with their host and get it taken down.
That said, if you subscribe to the Austrian “IP is bogus” school of thought (as I am), then you wouldn’t bother trying to enforce your copyright. You would spend more time differentiating your brand.
With regards to someone stealing your stuff, they would need to swipe your domain name to cause any real damage. I don’t want to go through the list of dirty tricks, but I think ERO is right, that you will be under everyone’s radar (there are literally trillions or more pages online) and if you have backups, you can always just set up a new site elsewhere if things became difficult.
In other words, you’re worrying about stuff that will probably never matter, and even if they do, you have a lot of ways to recover from it.
If you want more specific help you can PM me.
My main concern was just whether or not saying spefically that I was not claiming copyright could allow someone else to cause me legal trouble. I think instead of saying that I’m not copyrighting anything, I’ll just not say anything about copyright or use a creative commons lisense. Thanks for the replies.