Website owners may spend countless hours getting their content just right and then leave themselves vulnerable to having that content used by others without authorization. A business or individual that wants to protect the substantial investment made in a website should consider spending a little money to gain a lot of protection by having the website copyrighted. The benefits of registration far out way the minimal cost.
The federal courts have given computer programs the same copyright status as literary works. And copyright law recognizes that the contents of a website may be copyrighted. According to the Copyright Office, “the original authorship appearing on a website may be protected by copyright. This includes writings, artwork, photographs, and other forms of authorship protected by copyright.” In addition to registering the text of your website, you should consider registering the copyrights for individual images if you own them.
Perhaps the most important reason for promptly copyrighting your website is that a copyright registration may allow you to recover statutory damages and attorneys. But this must be done quickly. When you register your website within three months after publishing it or before an infringement occurs, you can seek both statutory damages and attorney's fees in lawsuit against an infringer. If the website has not been timely registered, you will be limited to recovering any actual damages that you could establish as well as a portion of the infringer’s profits that were proved to derive from the infringement. It is often very difficult, if not impossible, for a copyright owner to prove actual damages. If you have registered your website, however, you would be entitled to damages set by statute, ranging from $750 to $30,000 as determined by the court, even where you are unable to prove actual damages. And if you can demonstrate that the infringement was willful, a court may award up to $150,000 in statutory damages for each violation.
Prompt registration also makes you eligible to recover attorney’s fees in an infringement lawsuit. You cannot recover attorney’s fees for a copyright infringement unless you registered your website within three months of first publication. Given the potential costs of litigation, making the infringer pay for the lawsuit can be very significant.
If you want to sue someone for infringing on the contents of your website, a failure to have registered will, at the very least, delay the process. Because having a registered copyright is a prerequisite to filing suit in federal court, you would have to wait until a registration certificate had issued before filing suit. Given the current workload at the Copyright office, it would in all likelihood take four months or more after your application is filed because a Certificate of Registration was issued and you could proceed to federal court.
Registration also definitively establishes the fact of the copyright on the public record. In addition, if you register your work within five years of its publication, it is considered to be prima facie evidence in court establishing (1) the validity of your website copyright and (2) the facts as stated in your Certificate of Registration issued by the Copyright Office.
Registration may also be beneficial if you’re hoping to avoid litigation. When an infringement is discovered, the usual procedure is to send a “cease and desist” letter identifying the infringement and demanding that the infringer stop using your content. If you can include the fact of a federal copyright registration in that letter, along with a notice that the infringement may result in an award of statutory damages and attorney’s fees, it is far more likely that the “cease and desist” letter will convince the infringer to stop using your content before it becomes necessary to file suit.
If the content of your website changes regularly, you should establish a procedure for regularly registering the website. Because registration for a published work is retroactive to the publication date if the application is filed within three months after the work is first published, the most complete protection can be obtained by register a copyright at least once every three months.
It should be noted that a domain name is not protected by copyright law. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a nonprofit organization that has assumed the responsibility for domain name system management, administers the assignation of domain names through accredited registers.