Copyright protects
original works of authorship, including the text, graphics, photographs, sound
recordings and audiovisual elements of websites and their underlying computer
programs. To be copyrightable, website material must meet two criteria:
1.It must be an original
work of authorship. It must originate with the copyright owner and show some
minimal amount of creativity. You cannot copyright a domain name or the title
of a website.
2.It must be fixed in
some sort of tangible medium that allows it to be perceived, reproduced or
otherwise communicated. This includes computers and digital media. You cannot
copyright ideas, procedures, systems or methods of operation.
Who Owns the Copyright
to Your Website?
A website is often a
compilation of things – text, graphics, photographs, video and computer
programs – created by several people. You only own the copyright to the parts
of a website that you created, unless copyrights to the other parts have been
transferred to you.
If the website was
created by your employees as part of their regular job, you will own the
copyright.
If you hire someone to
create a website for your business, the person you hired owns the copyright to
whatever they created. If you want to own the copyright to all of the
copyrightable portions of your business website, you will need work for hire
agreements or agreements transferring the copyrightable content to you. An
attorney can assist you with this.
Similarly, if you are a
website designer, you own the copyright to the copyrightable portions of your
designs and content, unless you have signed a written agreement transferring
those rights to someone else.
Why Should You Register
a Copyright?
There are several
advantages to registering your
copyright with the Vietnam Copyright Office. These advantages include:
Registration serves as a
public record of your copyright ownership.
If you register your
copyright within three months of publication or before an infringement occurs,
you can recover statutory damages and attorneys fees if you win a copyright
infringement lawsuit. Statutory damages are awarded for each work infringed and
do not require you to prove your monetary loss or the infringer’s gain.
Special Rules for
Website Copyright Registration
A copyrightregistration only
covers the copyrightable elements of your website that you identify and submit
to the copyright office as part of your registration.
Updates to websites must
be registered separately unless they fall within limited exceptions for
automatic updates and serials. Details about these exceptions can be found on
the copyright office website.
If you developed a
computer program, such as an html program, that establishes the format of text
and graphics when a website is viewed on a computer screen, you can register a
copyright in the computer program, but the registration will not cover the
content of the website.
0 nhận xét:
Đăng nhận xét