'Oh, that's a rather dashing picture of Rob Dyer from the Copyright Licensing Agency on CLA. I think I'll copy and use it on my site'
WAIT! Don't do anything until you read his three minute copyright crammer...

Copy, copy, copy
In a single world wide web page there can be dozens of different copyrights. The text articles are literary works, the graphics are artistic works, and any sound files are musical works. The consent of the copyright holder is required for each act of copying.

Some content may even have more than one associated copyright. For example, if an original image has been scanned (with permission of course!) by someone for use on their website, you may need to get permission from both parties to use the scanned version on your site.

Can you check my cache?
You may not even be aware that you are copying from a website, but when you start browsing, copies are made into your computer's RAM in your 'browser's cache'.

Copyright encourages creativity – repeat
Copyright can also apply to the design or layout of the site itself. (Check out urban75. for details of the 'blatant homage' to urban75's excellent site.)

Therefore, the HTML coding as a whole, itself can be copyrighted – just like the words that make up a best-selling novel are. So when designing a web site from scratch, don't copy large chunks of source code from another site.

Remember, that the Internet is all about originality. Copyright laws shouldn't be seen as stopping you doing things but the opposite – in encouraging creativity and originality.

Border skirmishes in the Shetlands
In the UK there have been copyright issues related to hyperlinking using frames. In 1996, The Shetland News website was linking into the news pages of The Shetland Times, but keeping its own border frames. Hence, visitors thought the Shetland News was generating the news rather than The Shetland Times. Only after a court case did the News stop doing this, and everyone in the Shetlands could relax and be friends again.

So when hyperlinking, don't do it within a frame, but link directly. As a courtesy, you should e-mail the webmaster of the other site to let them know that you wish to link to them (maybe they'll return the favour too). And where possible, link to home pages, rather than deeper into sites, otherwise you're more likely to bypass notices of copyright.

Reading the signs
Definitely look at what you can and can't copy by checking copyright notices – usually a link at the bottom of a site's home page – and if designed well, on every other page. This usually opens a new window and tells you what copyrights and terms and conditions of use apply to that site.

It's surprising how many sites don't include one. Can you imagine a book being published without a copyright notice in it? Well it's exactly the same for the Internet.

Make sure you include one yourself, to let visitors know what you permit them to use and what you don't! As the Internet is global, it's best to use the internationally recognised © symbol as well as the word 'copyright'.

If you do accidentally infringe on someone's copyright and they find out, you can either hide under your bed and simply hope their expensive, scary-looking lawyers go away, or simply remove the offending image, text or sound from your site and plead their forgiveness. But if you've been paying attention during the last three minutes that won't happen, will it?