Hello Guys, Wassup ? there is question bumping my head, is website cloning legal ? if yes , why ? if no , what if some one clone the design of the website , changed the color , and all the content ? means he clones "the parts cutting of the website" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MORE INFO: ------------- "all Div" positions are the same and title of the boxes are the same.. Contents is totally different but same niche. colors layout he changed it from: orange to yellow for example. legal or not legal ?
Using copyrighted content without the owner's permission is illegal. Cloning may or may not use copyrighted content. If the design doesn't incorporate copyrighted material, the cloning probably is not illegal. To merit copyright protection, a work must be creative. There is no black-and-white rule as to how much creativity is enough. In most case, the layout of a website is probably not sufficiently creative to merit copyright protection, at least in the United States. I don't doubt that there are exceptions, but there would have to be something distinctive about the layout for it to meet the legal criteria that the work be creative. It is also conceivable, though I think highly unlikely, that a website layout could be entitled to trademark protection, perhaps as "trade dress." Again, however, the layout would have to be distinctive. Given the relative limitations of a website design and the requirement that the trade dress not be "functional", I would be very surprised to see a website layout protected as trade dress.
You mean For example: some one came into my company ( dress related company for example) website , saved my website layout , and he changed all all all content ! and the color , and he created new content (but in same niche: dress ) ! then he is legally fine ?
no. it depends on the circumstances. a lawyer ill be able to help you determine the legalities of a specific case
Exactly. My point was that many elements of a layout are NOT protected by copyright, so if someone copies your basic website layout, it is possible that you have no right to stop them. There can also be design elements of a layout that ARE sufficiently creative to merit copyright protection. You can't make a broad statement that copying a website layout is copyright infringement nor that it is not. Someone who is familiar with copyrights could look at the two websites side-by-side and tell you whether it is likely that the second site infringes a copyright of the first site.