Copyright

Copyright Issues

Copyright law secures for the creator of a creative effort the exclusive right to control who can make copies, or make works derived from the original work.  Original works of authorship are what it is all about.  In the case of works made for hire, the employer and not the employee is considered to be the author.  In the case of non employer/employee relationships (i.e., contract work, such as web development) the parties must expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire or else the sub-contractor will be considered to be a co-owner of the work and the copyright.  (El Valle's contracts expressly grant ownership to a client for any work performed for hire by El Valle for the client.)

 

A copyright notice is not required to be in or on the "work."  Copying anything from anywhere is probably a copyright violation unless the owner has clearly granted the right to copy the "work."  Which raises an interesting point:  Is the person authorizing the copying the real owner?  The Internet is an amazing place with people all over the world knowingly copying and downloading all kinds of stuff from all kinds of websites.  They might then repost the copied work granting the right to further copy the work.  This is clearly illegal.

You should also consider that, for the most part, copyright is an internationally recognized right.

 

Our Links Page on this sub-web includes links to excellent sites with FAQs and discussions about copyright law.

Links

Links to other web sites may involve copyright issues.  Prior to establishing a link for your website to another website it is normally appropriate to obtain the permission of the other website.  This can depend on the content of the "linked to" site.  If it is obvious that the "linked to"website is a commercial web site that develops an income stream from viewers coming to their website then you can expect that linking to the web site will not only be OK but greatly appreciated.  The same can be said of political or government web sites.

On the other hand, some sites are concerned about incoming links from sites which they might believe are inappropriate for whatever the reason.  Thus, again, it is good "web behavior" to contact a website's webmaster and ask for permission to place a link to that web site from your site.

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