‘“I have paid a developer handsomely for my company’s website so my company owns the Copyright? Right?” Well, not exactly.
The question itself is predicated on a totally incorrect assumption of legal principle of their being a single copyright pertaining to a single site. When considered carefully, a website may consist of a large number of separate elements including music (or jingles), text, photographs, the font of the characters making up the site, colours, style, “look and feel”, language, sequence in which the web pages appear, forms, drawings and designs, and not forgetting the domain name itself. Each and every-one of those features attracts its own copyright and a website might therefore be correctly regarded as a ‘bundle’ of different rights protected separately by copyright law. How does this work? Let us begin by considering any music appearing on the website.’
Zenith Chambers, 12th August 2014
Source: www.zenithchambers.co.uk
