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WEb Design Copyright

Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 7:49 pm
by chris12295
I have heard that web designs are copyrightable and any site looking the same or similar violates copyright laws and I have heard the opposite. Which is true? Are web designs copyrightable?

Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 7:57 pm
by feyd
Yes, designs are copyrightable. No, it is not illegal to look similar provided certain criteria has been reached.

Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 8:00 pm
by chris12295
What criteria?

Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 8:08 pm
by feyd
Read the copyright act(s), the fair use act(s) and so forth.

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2007 2:26 pm
by chris12295
So you can copyright a design but does that include layout? For example could I use the layout of facebook but have different colors and images?

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2007 3:24 pm
by feyd
That's up to the acts I referred to and facebook's lawyers to figure out.

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2007 3:52 pm
by Xoligy
The law states that anything you create you own the copyrights to automatically. You cannot take someone else's work without their permission. As long as you don't take someone else's work, you're not breaching copyright. There's nothing in the law that states you can't make a design that looks like another site. Although it's frowned upon, as long as you're not taking someone else's work you're not really breeching copyright.

If you take facebook's design and change the colours, you're breeching copyright. If you make your own design that looks like Facebook's, you're not breaking the law. That said, if you make it look too similar (eg. pixel perfect) then you're breaking the law.

The way it's laid out is not copyrightable, since it's too ambiguous. It's like copyrighting a colour combination of colours on a site, or trying to trademark "that's hot" as a phrase.

Of course I'm no lawyer, but it's what I've learnt from experience. At the end of the day, it's hard for them to claim they invented curved corners and a 2 tone header.

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2007 3:56 pm
by chris12295
Thank you, thats what I wanted to know.