[TriLUG] copyright question

[Scott R. Chilcote]

Mike M wrote:
> Is the look of a web page a copyrighted thing?  I believe the HTML and
> CSS can be copyrighted, but there is more than one way to create a
> similar appearance to a web page.
> 
> Let's say that you admire a web page design.  You copy the page source 
> and modify the source by changing grahic images and colors.  You change
> all trademark references. You also change all the content. All that
> remains are page layout and css objects.  Let's say you've even
> changed all the object names in the css. How much changing is
> necessary to make the new work separate and apart from the original?
> 
> What if from scratch you recreate the general layout and color scheme of a webpage
> that is copyrighted.  Is this a violation of copyright?


If you (or someone else) is just looking for inspiration, one way to 
avoid the copyright issue is to take advantage of some of the open 
source repositories of web design ideas.  oswd.org comes to mind, but if 
you search on "open source web design" there are several sites.

If you take someone's offering and improve on it, you may be able to 
make it available to other developers (depending on the licensing).

Regards,

Scott C.