Does Copyright Notice Protect a Website?

Dear Rich: Does putting "Copyright 2023" at the bottom of website pages protect the site from visitors who download an image or narrative content?

Placing a copyright notice on your website is like sticking a "Keep off the grass" sign on your front lawn. People who respect your property rights will stay off, and those who don't ... you'll just have to chase them away. The copyright notice doesn't add any new weapons to your copyright arsenal (although it used to be very important). Unless you're willing to follow up on the theft of your website with a threatening letter (or better yet, have your attorney do it), it's unlikely your copyright notice will have much effect on a bad actor bent on copying.

Rephrase the question. Can we suggest you rephrase your question to "What can I do about visitors who download images and content from my website without my permission?" (Note: There are technical methods of preventing copying of your text, but these involve website coding, and some techies consider them pointless.) 

The legal route. Tracking infringers, threatening them with legal action, and dragging them into court for financial punishment has proven to be the most effective way to deal with website theft. Because the government does not enforce copyright, you must hunt down infringers and seek justice, so protecting your website can be expensive. Also, remember that winning your case doesn't guarantee a return on attorney fees.

Fortify your defenses. If you foresee the possibility that you'll nab someone copying your website, the following steps will increase your chances of success and remuneration for your troubles.

1. Ensure you own or have permission to use your website content.
2. Include copyright notice on each of your web pages (It may help prove that the infringer was aware you claimed copyright). 
3. Include a method for contacting you if someone wants to license content.
4. Gather evidence of copying. Prepare side-by-side tables showing your site and the copied site.
5. Register your website. If you have a registration in place three months before an infringement occurs, a judge has more freedom in awarding statutory damages -  a range of punishments instead of just compensating you for out-of-pocket damages -- and attorney fees. You'll find help on website registration at the Copyright Office. 
6. If you can afford it, have an attorney write a cease and desist letter. 
7. If you can afford it, have an attorney file a copyright suit, or if you are a go-getter with a DIY mindset, consider filing a case in the Copyright Small Claims court.
8. Review the facts before you make threats. Some who copy may have fair use defenses.
9. Pick your fights carefully. Go after those (1) inflicting the most damage competitively or (2) high-profile copying that you can't ignore.

Famous Person Won't Pay for Web Work

Dear Rich: I designed a blog for a certain very famous person several years ago, and everyone was happy. This past summer, I outlined a list of updates that I would suggest making, and they agreed that those were all a good idea, so I wrote up an estimate and started work. Work was submitted for review by them in July. The review took forever, I issued an invoice at the end of August (I hadn't heard anything and didn't want to wait), the famous person got grumpy, didn't pay the invoice for 2 months, then sent me 40% last week with an email saying it took too long to complete and they wouldn't pay the balance until sometime in December. I gave them notice that this wasn't acceptable, and, when I didn't hear back from them within 24 hours, I suspended their access to the backend of their website. The site remained live and active, and nobody but them would know what was going on. This is a pretty standard practice in this industry, much like when one doesn't pay one's electric bill, and it successfully got their attention, for better and worse. They decided they no longer want to work with me (no problem here!), and asked me to surrender access to all domain hosts and registrars etc, as well as sign a confidential settlement agreement. I've given them access to all sites and registrations and everything that they can legally consider theirs. I've even agreed to let them continue using my creative work (the theme that the blog uses) as long as I get paid for it and can take credit for my work. 2 pretty basic things. The problem is the settlement agreement. This is what I do for a living, and I don't want to remove the site from my portfolio, but they want that to be a term of the settlement agreement. They insist that I not link to the site or use the famous person's name. I pushed back and added a clause declaring the design and programming to be mine, and they have yet to get back to me about that. Because I've given them access to everything they need to transfer the website, they have begun transferring everything over to a new server, including my intellectual property, and I'm pretty sure that they won't negotiate on the settlement agreement until they've completely removed the site from my servers.We're about to enter a situation where I have no leverage, and they won't agree to pay me unless I sign a contract agreeing to their terms.  Should I take measures to stop them from transferring the part of the site that is my intellectual property? Should I issue a cease-and-desist since they're currently using my intellectual property without my permission? The only two things I care about are getting paid for work done months ago and being able to take credit for my work. We think you're likely to be outgunned in a legal battle. Here's why:

• Unless you had a contractual right to do it, turning off "under-the-hood" access could work against you.
• If you started the work without approval, that may relieve or reduce the famous person's obligations.
• As for your contribution to the look and feel of the site -- "the theme" -- you could have a hard time claiming proprietary rights. 
• Alternatively a court may determine that you granted the famous person a nonexclusive implied license to use your theme. 
• Even if you prevail, the costs will easily exceed any potential payout (unless you have an attorney fees provision). 

So what about settling? You want credit and payment. Famous people are picky about who can use their name for promotional purposes so you need a workaround for the credit and portfolio rights. Perhaps there is some special language you can agree upon that will satisfy all the parties -- for example a statement in your portfolio that the reference is not intended to imply famous person's endorsement. (In the future, try to negotiate credit before you start work.) If you use any backend software programming and coding tricks -- the things that you developed and routinely use to make your job easier -- then retain rights to continue using those.  Have an attorney review the settlement. Try to get payment in full at the time of signing. You want to walk out with the money.

Is Permission Needed to List Websites in Book?

Do I need to get permission to list websites in a published book? All the websites I wish to include are accessible through Google. Do I need to deal with each site for permission or do I need to deal with Google? You don't need to deal with either; no permission is required when providing the name or publicly-accessible URL (web address) for any website. You may only run into problems listing websites if you are encouraging illegal activity by knowingly listing or linking to sites that promote bad stuff -- for example, child porn sites, sources of illegal downloads, or sites that are exposing confidential information or invading privacy.

SEO Company Ruined My Web Site!

Dear Rich: I am a self-employed career coach who owns and maintains her own business web site. All of the copy on the site was written by me and has been painstakingly crafted by me over the past four years. From it I have garnered numerous new clients and many comment that it was the content of my site that drew them in. Last November I hired a company to perform SEO services on the site in order to improve its visibility on search engines. I signed a contract with them, committing to an $8,000 expenditure in order to receive guaranteed search results on the major search engines. Most of the contracted services pertain to meta tags, keyword optimization, indexing and back links. The contract explicitly states that the SEO company will be making recommendations to me for improvement of my rankings, and I am obligated to make those changes. No problem so far. They had not recommended any necessary changes so I believed all was well, and expected that when/if changes needed to be made they would let me know. Yesterday I noticed that the copy on my web site had been dramatically, horribly altered. Everything I wrote for the site is gone, replaced by poorly written text, bad grammar, typos and flat-out inaccuracies. For example, I charge a fee for an Introductory Session; yesterday I noticed the word FREE had replaced my fee on numerous pages. And this was the tip of the iceberg as it became clear that all of the copy on my site had been replaced by embarrassingly bad writing. This was a heartbreak. I was never informed that my copy would be changed, I never authorized the editing of my copy, nor did anyone at the SEO company communicate that it had made the changes. I only learned of this by accident when visiting my site yesterday. It appears that this abomination of my copy -- and my professional image -- has appeared on my site for a couple of weeks. (Thankfully, only a couple of weeks). I spent several hours yesterday repairing the damage they had done. Based on the terms of the contract, I can't sue the SEO company for non-performance of their SEO duties. Can I file suit for copyright infringement? Before we bring in the lawyers, let's consider some practical issues:

• Did you pay the whole sum up front? If not, obviously, you should hold off on making any additional payments until this matter is sorted properly. Did you pay with a credit card; if so check with the provider to determine whether you can dispute the payment. Ditto for PayPal.
• Are you sure that your contract states that you are obligated to make the recommended changes? That seems a little odd ... agreeing ahead of time to make unknown changes. Are you sure there isn't some sort of approval process? If not, your situation becomes a bit murky, especially because you apparently gave them access to your site in order to modify it.
• Perhaps you can claim non-performance of duties. Just because the company mucked about in your website doesn't mean they performed their services. From your description of what happened, it sounds as if the company breached the contract by going beyond standard SEO techniques and interfering directly with your marketing. The fee-to-free fiasco seems particularly irksome. 
• Where is the company located and what does the agreement say about disputes? If, by some miracle, the company is located in your home state, that will make it easier to sue in small claims court and recover. Does the agreement have a jurisdiction provision explaining where you have to sue, or an attorney fee provision guaranteeing the winning party their attorney fees?
• If you gave the SEO company the keys to your site ... In case you haven't done so already, it's time to change the access password in order to prevent any further setbacks.
• Have you informed the company of your displeasure? After you've reviewed all your options above, you should send a notice (see if the contract has notice requirements) informing the company of your displeasure and letting them know that you consider them in breach and -- for what it's worth -- that you want a full refund. This is sometimes a prerequisite for small claims court or credit card claims.
• Can you sue for copyright infringement? Copyright infringement is the unauthorized use or modification of a work. If you gave the company access to your site and permission to modify, your problem will more likely be considered a contractual dispute, rather than a copyright claim.

Can I post website comments in my book?

Dear Rich: What should I do to ensure that any emails I get related to my web site or blog are publishable, say, in a book? Is it enough to just say on the web site where I have my email address listed, that anything sent to me via email becomes mine, or must I only allow comments via the web site/blog itself, and only after the sender pushes a button at the bottom of some legal gobbledygook that says that I can use their comments? If someone has chosen to publish comments at your site, you may wonder why you now need permission to "repost" those comments in a book. Hasn't the commenter already consented to publication by posting? No, by posting the commenter has only granted an implied license to reproduce the comment at the site. Even without this implied consent, you may be able to reproduce some comments in your book under a fair use defense, or in the case of comments that are just a few words, by arguing that short phrases are not protected by copyright. But ideally, you want a consent before republishing in a book.
Gobbledygook dept. Copyright law requires that you have a written agreement granting you the right to publish other people's work and electronic agreements such as clickwrap agreements are fine (as long as the user consents before posting). At Nolo, where we work, where we make an effort to avoid gobbledygook, a statement such as "By posting this comment you are granting [website owner] the non-exclusive right to reproduce it online, and in print and digital publications," doesn't seem like gobbledegoo (as Sylvia Plath referred to it) to us. This notice should be posted prominently in the space where the user is posting so that publishing the comment acts as a form of "click-to-accept" agreement.  It's a good idea to save a screenshot of your site with the date you instituted the permission policy (and save a HTML version of the site as well).

Using screen names. You should be okay posting screen names as they don't identify the poster, but issues may arise when reproducing people's real names. If you want permission, you'll need to tweak your goobledegook (note the accepted alternate spelling) to state "... and you grant permission to reproduce the name (whether screen name or real name) used in connection with the posting of your comment."