Past couple of days I been reading material in regards to who owns a copyright, the law that surrounds domains and what not.
Wheres a good place to discuss this sort of matter? More or less discuss it with other webmasters that may be in the type of position I am in, and what and how to protect theirselves.

thanks

not sure about wheres best, heres as good as any place. there was a good thread about some company called burst who had registered hostgui.? for some reasons best know to itself. they eventually released the domain to jag pc. have a read as theres several good writeups on copyright.

im not a lawyer \ solicitor or have any legal qualifications but ive spent a lot of time reading up on consumer and business law. its a prerequisite for existing in business. do some research on the law of passing off as its called in the uk. it varies globally, but in general if i have a company calls polo web design, im entitled to use polo.net and my local co.uk and if im using it fairly for my business then volkswagen and nestle (i think they own polo mints) would have a hard time getting it off me. if i used to to launch a volkswagen are pants campaign then they would have a right. if i bought it to hold to ransom then i would have to forfeit it. for someone to challenge me they would have to have a legitimate right to the domain, i would have to have no right to it or be abusing them.
copyright is interesting, a copyright comes into existance through use and through registering. both are legal copyrights, use requires that the copyright is mentioned as such and if possible distinguished by highlighting in bold \ italics. registering a trademark costs money and means you can keep your name safe and secure without disclosing it but you need to be the first to the name and be prepared to dispute it should the occasion arise. disputes are amusing as where they are disputed is usually an issue and the expense is a factor.

all this is to the best of my knowledge and gained from chatting to lecturers and raiding the uni library.
if you find any good material \ discussions please post back here :) thanks

I been reading over at nolo.com, they have some good reviews on stuff but its confusing as to where I stand as the webmaster, neccessaryly it doesnt say you have to pay money to copyright your information, that if your the sole creator, you own the copyright

If explaining my situation would help any I have no problem with it, its long though.. :rolleyes:

when you create something you do own the intellectual copyright, which you can release to another party, if you create an image the copyright is yours. if you utilise a phrase then if you were the first to use it then it becomes copyrighted by use but this isnt as strong as registering the copyright. you can be put in a situation where it is best for you to fully register a copyright by being bullied into it. but yeah you dont particularly have to register it or pay, merely use it.

Tell ya the deal here is this.... im part of a club that i webmaster, and one of the admins there, is looking to push me out of the club for some odd reason, (which he pushed out two owners before) i got an anonymous tip from the owner bout this, even though i designed it all, they have the power to lock me out of the server. And the owner doesnt even have the domain in his name, however were working quietly together to get this domain back into his name so we can resolve this issue. HOwever, if this doesnt work, Ill have to rely on copyright laws, cybersquatting and a lawyer of some sort :(

Before this thread gets too far along, let's clarify one thing: it seems that the terms "copyright" and "trademark" are being used almost interchangeably, and they are different things. In relation to the web, you might have a copyright on a site's content, but a trademark applies to the name of a business or a product, or to a slogan.

So in a domain name dispute the existence or prior use of a trademark may be relevant, but copyright isn't likely to be.

woops sorry just noticed id used trademark in my above post, thanks for the correction, was meant to read registering a copyright

well good thing is nothing is trademarked...