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michellaynn
Hopefully this is not in the wrong forum...I'm not sure where else to put this.

Anyway, I am confused about copyrights. If I don't have a copyright on my site, does that mean that anybody could legally steal it? What if I have different authors contributing to my site?

If I put the authors name before each article, does that protect their work?

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trottski1990
if i remember rightly technically by posting something on your website that work becomes copyrighted automatically?
This means that if someone rips of your work without your permission their infringing your copyright.

edit: i remember this is all covered under the Berne convention which states:

QUOTE
Copyright under the Berne Convention must be automatic; it is prohibited to require formal registration (note however that when the United States joined the Convention in 1988, they continued to make statutory damages and attorney's fees only available for registered works).

The Berne Convention states that all works except photographic and cinematographic shall be copyrighted for at least 50 years after the author's death, but parties are free to provide longer terms, as the European Union did with the 1993 Directive on harmonising the term of copyright protection. For photography, the Berne Convention sets a minimum term of 25 years from the year the photograph was created, and for cinematography the minimum is 50 years after first showing, or 50 years after creation if it hasn't been shown within 50 years after the creation. Countries under the older revisions of the treaty may choose to provide their own protection terms, and certain types of works (such as phonorecords and motion pictures) may be provided shorter terms.

aussiemcgr
It is best to add a copyright anyway. Not just for stealing issues, but also if someone is using information from your site in an essay or something and they need to cite their sources. Alot of the information they need when citing can be found in the copyrights. Its just easier for everyone really.
trottski1990
I was just pointing out you don't have to go to great lengths applying for and paying to get copyright and that it's automatic.
IamShipon1988
Generally copyrights prevent people from taking your work and not giving any credits back to you. If you have multiple authors, you can generally link to a page the contains the list of all the authors. I often put a general copyright on my footer and if I have anyone contributing, I leave the credits into the CSS or within the source code using comment tags (<!--Credits to blahblah-->). It's always good to have copyrights just like trottski1990 stated.
Banjo
When I first got into web development I thought you had to pay for copyright. I'm not really sure how it works but don't you just add copyright yourname or something on website or picture and it's copyrighted?
Moocha
If you have created the content then its your intellectual property, its worth adding a copyright notice to the page, but the bottom line is that if someone wants to pinch it they will. the law doesn't stop people from pinching content but it does allow for them to be prosecuted if found to be doing so.
MrTouz
Yea, i always wondered what to do if someone stills your work ?
benallos
There are many people who steals content in the internet.
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