Hey people, Im wondering if the look and feel "layout" of a sight be copyrighted? I found a site that has a layout i want and im looking at stealing it (within legal limitations ofcourse). Any advice would be grateful! thx
You mean copying the code and/or graphics from the site and use them on your own? If so that is really stealing and as such of course illegal.
You could "reverse-engineer" the website you're talking about, specifically build it up with nothing to try to match the look and feel of that website. That usually guards against copyright infringement. -However, I would definitely advise against you simply cutting and pasting html code or any design blocks for that matter. That could get you in trouble, not a lawyer, just a law student, but don't take that as legal advice.
You can start with the other site as a baseline and then make enough changes so that your new site it is clearly different from the original. When you make a new derivative work, even though it is based on someone else's copyrighted work, you are safe.
Only the copyright owner, or one who was granted permission, may create derivative works. If you do not have permission, you are violating the copyright act and the copyright holder's exclusive rights. See § 106 for more information.
Aww shit. Shows you why not to take advice from non-lawyers And to think, I actually prevailed in my copyright defense (well, my lawyers did). Just went back to my emails. Looks like I got my terms mixed up. I know I discussed with our attorneys our habit of imitating the look of sites we like. Even though I totally f'ed up the terms, I still think that I was advised that so long as it looks different and we don't use their actual images, we should be safe. Though now I feel I need to go back and re-confim because maybe I'm confuing wishful thinking with actual memory
"Safe" probably means the owners most likely won't do anything about it. For instance, look at fan sites. Technically, there is usually a violation there, but the one violated might not pursue the matter because it is not in their best interest to do so.