As a Linux user do you Copyright your blog or websites?

[RAV TUX]

More information about Copyrights:

How to Secure a Copyright

Copyright Secured Automatically upon Creation

The way in which copyright protection is secured is frequently misunderstood. No publication or registration or other action in the Copyright Office is required to secure copyright. (See following note.) There are, however, certain definite advantages to registration. See “Copyright Registration.”
Copyright is secured automatically when the work is created, and a work is “created” when it is fixed in a copy or phonorecord for the first time. “Copies” are material objects from which a work can be read or visually perceived either directly or with the aid of a machine or device, such as books, manuscripts, sheet music, film, videotape, or microfilm. “Phonorecords” are material objects embodying fixations of sounds (excluding, by statutory definition, motion picture soundtracks), such as cassette tapes, CDs, or LPs. Thus, for example, a song (the “work”) can be fixed in sheet music (“copies”) or in phonograph disks (“phonorecords”), or both. If a work is prepared over a period of time, the part of the work that is fixed on a particular date constitutes the created work as of that date.

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#wci

International Copyright Protection

There is no such thing as an “international copyright” that will automatically protect an author’s writings throughout the entire world. Protection against unauthorized use in a particular country depends, basically, on the national laws of that country. However, most countries do offer protection to foreign works under certain conditions, and these conditions have been greatly simplified by international copyright treaties and conventions. For further information and a list of countries that maintain copyright relations with the United States, request Circular 38a, International Copyright Relations of the United States.

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#wci

Copyright Registration

In general, copyright registration is a legal formality intended to make a public record of the basic facts of a particular copyright. However, registration is not a condition of copyright protection. Even though registration is not a requirement for protection, the copyright law provides several inducements or advantages to encourage copyright owners to make registration. Among these advantages are the following:

• Registration establishes a public record of the copyright claim.

• Before an infringement suit may be filed in court, registration is necessary for works of U.S. origin.

• If made before or within 5 years of publication, registration will establish prima facie evidence in court of the validity of the copyright and of the facts stated in the certificate.

• If registration is made within 3 months after publication of the work or prior to an infringement of the work, statutory damages and attorney's fees will be available to the copyright owner in court actions. Otherwise, only an award of actual damages and profits is available to the copyright owner.

• Registration allows the owner of the copyright to record the registration with the U. S. Customs Service for protection against the importation of infringing copies. For additional information, go to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection website at www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/import. Click on “Intellectual Property Rights.”

Registration may be made at any time within the life of the copyright. Unlike the law before 1978, when a work has been registered in unpublished form, it is not necessary to make another registration when the work becomes published, although the copyright owner may register the published edition, if desired.

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#wci

Registration Procedures

Original Registration

To register a work, send the following three elements in the same envelope or package to:
Library of Congress
Copyright Office
101 Independence Avenue, SE
Washington, DC 20559-6000

1. A properly completed application form.
2. A nonrefundable filing fee* for each application.
3. The deposit requirements vary in particular situations. The general requirements follow. Also note the information under “Special Deposit Requirements.”
   • If the work was first published in the United States on or after January 1, 1978, two complete copies or phonorecords of the best edition.
   • If the work was first published in the United States before January 1, 1978, two complete copies or phonorecords of the work as first published.
   • If the work was first published outside the United States, one complete copy or phonorecord of the work as first published.
   • If sending multiple works, all applications, deposits, and fees should be sent in the same package. If possible, applications should be attached to the appropriate deposit. Whenever possible, number each package (e.g., 1 of 3, 2 of 4) to facilitate processing.

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#wci

...of course this is only valid for the USA.

The point is while Copyright is automatic, registration is benefical in a court of law, while it must be remembered there is NO international copyright law, therefore there is no world wide protection.

If you want to give rights you should do so via Creative Commons License.

[Bachstelze]

Copyrighting a blog (which we've seen is moot anyways) gives the blog author the power to let fellow bloggers repost his / her content (with credit given) and bring the hammer down on a big new corp posting the blog as an article of their own (even if credited).

True but it's a bit uncomfortable. I mean, if some dude writes something and puts no notice about which licence it is released under, how am I to know whether or not I'm allowed to reproduce it, and under which conditions ? How can I be sure than he will not attack me for copyright violation just because he doesn't like me and leave others alone ? No offense meant but your way of thinking - "Attack companies but not other bloggers." - is just as bad to me as "Attack Jews but not Muslims." (or the other way around).

Nothing irritates me more than a piece of unlicenced text, code, or whatever. That's why I always licence my stuff (BSD for code, CC Attributions for text), even the tiniest one, so that people know exactly what they may or may not do with it.

[RAV TUX]

Here is some helpful information about the Creative Commons License:

Offering your work under a Creative Commons license does not mean giving up your copyright. It means offering some of your rights to any member of the public but only on certain conditions.
What conditions? You can find an overview of the Creative Commons licenses here. All of our licenses require that you give attribution in the manner specified by the author or licensor.
Attribution. You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work — and derivative works based upon it — but only if they give credit the way you request.
Example: Jane publishes her photograph with an Attribution license, because she wants the world to use her pictures provided they give her credit. Bob finds her photograph online and wants to display it on the front page of his website. Bob puts Jane’s picture on his site, and clearly indicates Jane’s authorship.
Our core licensing suite will also let you mix and match conditions from the list of options below. There are a total of six Creative Commons licenses to choose from our core licensing suite.
Noncommercial. You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your work — and derivative works based upon it — but for noncommercial purposes only
Examples: Gus publishes his photograph on his website with a Noncommercial license. Camille prints Gus’ photograph. Camille is not allowed to sell the print photograph without Gus’s permission.
No Derivative Works. You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of your work, not derivative works based upon it.
Example: Sara licenses a recording of her song with a No Derivative Works license. Joe would like to cut Sara’s track and mix it with his own to produce an entirely new song. Joe cannot do this without Sara’s permission (unless his song amounts to fair use).
Share Alike. You allow others to distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs your work.
Note: A license cannot feature both the Share Alike and No Derivative Works options. The Share Alike requirement applies only to derivative works.
Example: Gus’s online photo is licensed under the Noncommercial and Share Alike terms. Camille is an amateur collage artist, and she takes Gus’s photo and puts it into one of her collages. This Share Alike language requires Camille to make her collage available on a Noncommercial plus Share Alike license. It makes her offer her work back to the world on the same terms Gus gave her.
More examples are available on our examples page. Also note that every license carries with it a full set of other rights in addition to the allowances specifically made here.
Taking a License

When you’ve made your choices, you’ll get the appropriate license expressed in three ways:

1. Commons Deed. A simple, plain-language summary of the license, complete
   with the relevant icons.
2. Legal Code. The fine print that you need to be sure the license will stand up in court.
3. Digital Code. A machine-readable translation of the license that helps search engines and other applications identify your work by its terms of use.

Using a License

You should then include a Creative Commons “Some Rights Reserved” button on your site, near your work. Help and tips on doing this are covered here. This button will link back to the Commons Deed, so that the world can be notified of the license terms. If you find that your license is being violated, you may have grounds to sue under copyright infringement.

http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/

[RAV TUX]

I was just wondering as Linux users who own and admin websites, what do you do? Copyright, Copyleft, Creative Commons license, GPL or other?

Also, what do you think of people who copyright stuff that comes from the internet? What exactely is copyrighted? The way it is represented?

I must remind some posters there is no controversary presented here...

I mainly asked Linux users what do you choose?

some choose a Creative Commons License like myself and ubuntuforums.org and HymnToLife. Others choose to copyright their work and that is fine.

I also asked what do you think of people who copyright content from the internet? While the USA copyright law specifically says that material: "consisting entirely of information that is common property and containing no original authorship" is not protected by copyright. One poster here pointed out the compilation may be.

What Is Not Protected by Copyright?

Several categories of material are generally not eligible for federal copyright protection. These include among others:

• Works that have not been fixed in a tangible form of expression (for example, choreographic works that have not been notated or recorded, or improvisational speeches or performances that have not been written or recorded)
• Titles, names, short phrases, and slogans; familiar symbols or designs; mere variations of typographic ornamentation, lettering, or coloring; mere listings of ingredients or contents
• Ideas, procedures, methods, systems, processes, concepts, principles, discoveries, or devices, as distinguished from a description, explanation, or illustration
• Works consisting entirely of information that is common property and containing no original authorship (for example: standard calendars, height and weight charts, tape measures and rulers, and lists or tables taken from public documents or other common sources)

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#wci

Actually there is a lot that is not protected by copyright, regardless if you put a copyright notice on your blog or not.

Many blogs I have seen either are made up of common property, which by USA law is not protected by copyright or they are made up of copyrighted material that they did not get promission for, again this would not be protected by copyright law. More importantly while copyright is automatic for original work it does not gaurentee you protection or retribution in a US court of law. While this is a international forum, it should be noted there is NO international copyright law. So while the Berne Convention stipulates automatic copyright; to it's protection it does nothing to bring you any real protection in the world wide arena.

Also, if you want to grant rights, as HymnToLife pointed out then you should spell it out specifically. I will again point out the best way to point it out is to select and publish a Creative Commons License with your original work.

[gnomeuser]

holy crap it turns out I do.. apparently my blog software or theme (wordpress) by default adds a copyright notice to every page.

Completely unintentional, but I'm pretty sure people don't care at all, it's not like my blog has extremely high traffic or in anyway to my knowledge have been quoted outside of fair use guidelines.

I took the time to figure out where in the php (and dear lord is php ugly) that was set and changed it

The GNOME Commentary now under a CC Attribution 3.0 license, just for the sake of it.

[Jucato]

Interesting information, although I must say I was a bit amused at first post. It gave me the impression that "copyright" was seen as a negative thing or that free software isn't copyrighted because it's GPL'ed or that these licenses contradict copyrights.

I'm no lawyer, but from what I understand, the GPL is a form of copyleft, that is, using copyright law to give more freedom to other people. Copyright basically says that you are the owner and you give certain rights or restrictions to copy or use the material. Copyleft says that you are the owner and you are using that ownership to grant more freedom to use and copy. So it's still copyrighted, but in an ingenious way. The license gives the legal framework for making this type of copyleft work.

But that's for software, and sometimes, documentation (GNU FDL). However, that doesn't neatly apply to other forms of work, such as articles, opinions, and works fo art. Even Stallman knows this as reflected at the bottom part of the GNU licenses page ( http://www.gnu.org/licenses/ ).

I believe that copyrighting and licensing your content, be it blog, artwork, etc., is a way to protect not only yourself, but also others who wish to copy and improve on your material. As for me, I'm still deciding on a license to use for my site.

[RAV TUX]

Interesting information, although I must say I was a bit amused at first post. It gave me the impression that "copyright" was seen as a negative thing or that free software isn't copyrighted because it's GPL'ed or that these licenses contradict copyrights.

I'm no lawyer, but from what I understand, the GPL is a form of copyleft, that is, using copyright law to give more freedom to other people. Copyright basically says that you are the owner and you give certain rights or restrictions to copy or use the material. Copyleft says that you are the owner and you are using that ownership to grant more freedom to use and copy. So it's still copyrighted, but in an ingenious way. The license gives the legal framework for making this type of copyleft work.

But that's for software, and sometimes, documentation (GNU FDL). However, that doesn't neatly apply to other forms of work, such as articles, opinions, and works fo art. Even Stallman knows this as reflected at the bottom part of the GNU licenses page ( http://www.gnu.org/licenses/ ).

I believe that copyrighting and licensing your content, be it blog, artwork, etc., is a way to protect not only yourself, but also others who wish to copy and improve on your material. As for me, I'm still deciding on a license to use for my site.

Jucato I have to say your website looks awesome!

I wondered why you took your multiply blog down, now I understand why. Outstanding Website!

I noticed you do have a Copyright at the bottom of each web page. As you stated and as I clearly evolved to understanding in this thread, everything that you publish that is original is automatically copyrighted.

I would suggest that you strongly consinder a Creative Commons License. The Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License that we use on Distropedia is nice.

The choice is ultimately yours, but without a Creative Commons License as HymnToLife pointed out, ordinary users like myself who may want to qoute and attribute your website have no way of knowing if you are cool with this.

Good to see your post btw!

[raublekick]

True but it's a bit uncomfortable. I mean, if some dude writes something and puts no notice about which licence it is released under, how am I to know whether or not I'm allowed to reproduce it, and under which conditions ? How can I be sure than he will not attack me for copyright violation just because he doesn't like me and leave others alone ? No offense meant but your way of thinking - "Attack companies but not other bloggers." - is just as bad to me as "Attack Jews but not Muslims." (or the other way around).

Nothing irritates me more than a piece of unlicenced text, code, or whatever. That's why I always licence my stuff (BSD for code, CC Attributions for text), even the tiniest one, so that people know exactly what they may or may not do with it.

Oh yes, I agree it isn't always the best, but it's still there as an option. But the bloggers vs. news media thing was more about free vs. paid content. I see your point though and it is well met. I'm no expert on the subject, so I don't mean for my post to be taken as expert opinion

[acowboydave]

I just published my website it deals with wallpaper I designed. I have on the last page, copyrighted. But on the first page, quote: This is a free site to use. Which it was meant for and is. I was led to believe it is common practice to copyright any work.

[RAV TUX]

I just published my website it deals with wallpaper I designed. I have on the last page, copyrighted. But on the first page, quote: This is a free site to use. Which it was meant for and is. I was led to believe it is common practice to copyright any work.

keep in mind that your original creations are always copyrighted whether you state it or not. What is important is that if you want to make it open for others to use you need to let people know under a Creative Commons License.