Laughing Lion Design

A question that comes up regularly in the design class is, Is it ok to use this image that I got from Google, Yahoo or any other number of websites? The answer to this question is often NO. You can’t just take any image that crops up in Google images and assume that it is copyright free.

What is copyright?
These are the basic rules of copyright in Ireland, but the rules are generally very similar throughout the world.

Copyright is the creator’s (or legal owner’s) rights in creative works like writing, computer software, sound recording, tv broadcasts, films and of course design. It is not necessary to register the work, nor is it necessary to pay any sort of fee to establish that the work is covered by copyright.

The author of a work is the first owner of copyright in the work. Exceptions to this are cases where the work is made under a contract of service. If you create work for Government publications, the copyright belongs to the Government – this is with agreement of the author. Web designers also need to look into this slightly murky area. Some useful articles are;

http://www.netmag.co.uk/zine/design-culture/copyright-for-web-designers

http://blog.pixelita.com/23/who-owns-your-web-site/

http://www.sitepoint.com/article/bulletproof-web-design-contract

Proof of ownership
So how can you protect your work? In the web world it can be quite difficult, but one of the first things you can do is to add the international copyright symbol to your work. Authors and artists can sign and date their work. Digital photographers can embed their copyright information into the image using Photoshop. However with billions of web pages out there it is increasingly difficult to keep track of your work. Services such as idée can help with this.

The law relating to copyright in Ireland was updated by the Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000. Hopefully it will never happen to you, but if a dispute does arise, it’s always a good idea to seek some legal advice if you feel that your work has been “nicked”.

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