Cyberspace Copyright: HTML Code/Formatting

Copyrighting of HTML code and formatting is a very gray area. On one hand, you could say, "I wrote it, therefore I can copyright it." On the other hand, can you really copy formatting?

HTML Code

First off, let's look at the "I wrote it, so I can copyright it" position. If someone writes something, they have every right to copyright it, at least they do according to U.S. copyright law. The question is, should HTML code be regarded as format or content? If you consider it as content, then what about it to you consider as content? The HTML tags themselves are in the public domain, so the only thing that you could copyright would be the organization and use of these tags. It would be hard to really judge this as content. And with the limited scope of HTML, how could you really tell if someone copied your format, or came up with it on their own? In general, HTML is better thought of as a formatting or structuring tool.

Formatting

Formatting is an interesting issue. How often is formatting copied? People copy other people's formats on resumes. Almost every VCR in the world has the same six buttons in the same order. Many Windows programs have very similar menus. In fact, the United States Supreme Court recently made a decision in the case of Lotus Development Corp. v. Borland International, Inc. in which it said that the menu structure for a piece of software is like the buttons on a VCR and its format cannot be copyrighted.

The other side of this issue is, what if you come up with a really inventive way to do some formatting on your page? Wouldn't you want to be able to copyright that new formatting technique? How would you protect your copyright? If someone did steal your format, how would you know? What if someone gets an inspiration from your home page, but then goes off and creates a similar home page totally on her own?

These are some of the questions you have to grapple with when deciding what should be the copyright law on formatting in cyberspace. What's right? We do not know. The laws of cyberspace are still being forged. However, if you would like to see what we think, feel free to check out our opinion.

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Copyright 1996 Allan Kotmel and Paulo Morales
Created for Writing to the World Wide Web at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Questions and comments can be emailed to Allan at kotmea@rpi.edu or to Paulo at moralp@rpi.edu