Copyrighting Website

[lcm104]

I paid an online company to "capture" my website and submit it for legal copyright. They are supposed to submit it in appropriate form with the correct paperwork and provide me a FedEx tracking number for the delivery date. After I paid the total fee, I started to wonder how I would even know if they submitted my website in whole, until at some later date when I tried to get proof that it had a federal copyright if I needed it for legal purposes would I be in for a huge surprise? I contacted the company to inquire about my order and was told that my application package had been submitted to the Washington DC office. I checked my log files and cannot see that anyone has copied my entire site...does anyone know how a website is captured for this purpose and wouldn't I be able to see the download in my log files?

[stapel]

How do you figure you would be able to "see" that your site was being called and saved, rather than just being called and viewed...?

The first time I filed the copyright on my site, I used an online service. It took a while (the Copyright Office is sometimes very slow), but they got the job done. And once it's been done, you can see from the completed paperwork which form to file and how to fill it in. I was very happy with the service provided.

Eliz.

[critical damage]

Hi, would either of you like to share which companies you used to have your website(s) copyright protected? I am currently working on a site and would like more information on how to legally protect it. I have been to the copyright.gov website and it seems rather complex. I mean nothing out of this world, but I'd much rather have someone who has recently been through the process explain it to me.

Thanks in advance for any information provided.

[stapel]

critical damage said: Hi, would either of you like to share which companies you used to have your website(s) copyright protected?

You can find loads of sites that will do it for you. Try Googling the word "copyright".

The site I used is listed on the first page of Google results. I don't think I'm allowed to say which it was, so sticky me if you'd like the URL.

Eliz.

[lcm104]

Hi, I don't think that I can mention who I used to copyright my website, but after completing the process I wish I would have asked a few more questions before I plunked down my cash. I put a lot of work into my website making all the graphics etc......
First off, I would have asked them how I would know that they had "captured" my site. It would be very easy to capture a couple of pages (my site is over 100 pages)and submit that to the copyright office. I would never know the difference unless I went to retrieve it to prove infringement. I searched my FTP logs and could never see where a transfer of all my pages had taken place. That is why I asked the question I asked in the first post. If someone can tell me how they capture the website and if it would be in my logs I would appreciate it.
Secondly, I now realize that I do not have a "receipt" from this company for the work they exactly did. There is no detailed documented contract for the copy of my site they sent for copyright.
The total cost of having my site submitted for copyright was $130.00 but I have no proof that it was actually done as I would like it to be done. And no receipt for the service, no details etc...........if I could go back and do it over, I would find out how to copy the website to a CD and submit it myself.

[stapel]

Unless the copyright service's spider were to declare itself somehow in your logs (some weird user-agent tag, maybe?), I don't see how you would be able to "tell" when the download was done. (And, to be polite, it would be expected that the spider would not try to "slam" your server with lots of requests all at once; the service would have set its spider to crawl slowly.)

Why had you thought you would be able to tell when your site was spidered...? Or are you saying that your site is getting so little traffic that you can "see" in the logs that many of your pages have never received any traffic...?

Why would you want the service to send you a copy of your site, when you already have the original?

As for a written contract, you should have negotiated that in advance. You may now have "buyer's remorse" and regret having spent the money, but it's doubtful you would have any claim at this point.

As for filing the copyright yourself, the information is still available, and you're still welcome to do that. But you should still expect the process to take months and, no, you won't hear anything (even if you do it yourself) in the interim. Sorry.

Eliz.

[lcm104]

you can tell when your site has been spidered by using FTP and looking at the logs for the day it was supposed to have been spidered. Assuming the spider asked for the robots text as all good spiders do, it would have shown up on my error report since I do not have a robots text. Google and a couple of other spiders that were not new to me appeared in my logs.
I know that I have buyers remorse that is why I posted the issues that are bothering me, in response to "Critical Damage" who was asking for information about it.
I know that it will take months and months to get the copyright registration number. I applied for, and got my own federally registered trademark and it took over a year.
I also do not think that a detailed receipt for what you paid for needs to be negotiated in advance. Once you hit the "submit" button to enter your credit card info for the product (service) one should get a receipt for what they paid for. I did not. My advice to Critcal Damage was to try to do it himself, which is what I probably should have done since I now have doubts about it. I think along these lines because I have good reason to want to get the federal copyright on my website. Without going into detail, there is no point in getting a copyright if one is not wanting to rely on it in court.

[stapel]

lcm104 said: ...looking at the logs for the day it was supposed to have been spidered.

You were given a day on which the service guaranteed the site would be spidered...?

lcm104 said: I...do not think that a detailed receipt for what you paid for needs to be negotiated in advance.

I'm pretty sure that one needs to reach an agreement before finalizing the contract. Payment would generally be regarded as indicating agreement with the stated terms.

lcm104 said: Once you hit the "submit" button...one should get a receipt for what [you] paid for.

How do you figure that hitting "submit payment" would generate a full listing of all the files on your site that would later be spidered? The payment processing and the site spidering are very likely two entirely separate processes.

Eliz.

[Broadway]

I would look at it this way.

You paid the firm to do a job. I would anticipate that they probably did what they said they would and you're all set.

In reality you don't necessarily have to worry that each and every page was "captured" and sent in. Even if all they did was "capture" your home page and a few top level pages, if someone is going to seriously rip you off they will have no doubt stolen something from the pages that were registered. You'll have plenty to sue about. Additionally, while I realize it is different from registering a copyright, the WayBack machine may have documented the content of your site.

You paid $130 for what would have cost you $45. In return you are going to get a copy of the Registration form (it usually takes me 6 months to get mine back). As Staple stated above, the luxury you now have is now you know precisely how the form needs to be filled out. So next time just make your own 5 page printout of selected content, burn your own CD of your site, fill out a new form TX, and write your own check for $45.

[critical damage]

lcm104--> Thanks for the info, I am considering filing for copyright registration myself. From what I understood off of the copyright(dot)gov website, all you have to do is put the entire contents of your website on cd rom and mail it to them along with the $45 reg. fee and form TX.

What I am not sure of is.... So what happens when I add content to my website? Will it then be necessary to re-submit the entire contents of my website, along with the new content, AND another $45 reg. fee? Or will I just have to send in my "new" content plus the fee?

Have any of you guys/gals had to do this?

Critical D

[Leosghost]

As to the ..how could one tell?

by looking at your logs you should easily be able to identify the actions of an automated downloader such as httrack or whatever ( even thought it will identify itself possibly as a browser ) ..a human surfing your site will not drill down through your nav in the same way as will a bot ..

some rippers such as blackwidow can be human guided to appear as if they are not "botting" ..and some more basic bots can have their hands held for log ins etc ..

but no single incoming IP address is going to be human and yet still take every file on your site ..so the one who ate it all ..was them ..

( if more than one "entity" ate it all ..you have scraper problems ;-) ..

your logs will tell you everything you need to know about who does what on your site ..and which bits are working and why ..and how and why they got there ..most people neglect than fine art of studying their logs for other things ..

they are in error to do so ..

[luckychucky]

Submission to the copyright office requires a printout of every web page you're submitting for copyright protection. There's no 'capture' of your site. The company to which you surrendered your money simply visits your site and prints it out - on ordinary treeware (paper).

They mail your printed-out site along with a check for $45 and a simple 2-sided, one-page form available on the Net (uspto.gov) which you could have filled in yourself within 10 minutes max. As someone mentioned earlier, now you're simply waiting on the government for its own bureaucratic wheels to turn. Eventually you'll get a certificate by postal mail from the USPTO.

They're not doing anything in a better or more correct way than you could easily have done yourself. It's an extraordinarily simple, very straightforward process. I wouldn't worry too much about being ripped off now. The real ripoff occurred when you initially gave them $85 extra for the very simplest of tasks, which a tiny moment of research could have spared.

[Broadway]

>>Submission to the copyright office requires a printout of every web page you're submitting for copyright protection.<<

This is not accurate. For a website, the Copyright Office requires a five page printout which is representative of the online work.

See:http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ66.html#the1

[critical damage]

Broadway, You are right! I was actually about to post the same link you posted. :-)

[luckychucky]

Me, I submit a hard copy printout of every page I want protected. No representative sample of a few typical pages for me, thanks. You're free to do whatever you wish, but if I ever end up seeking damages in court, I want good evidence.

[Broadway]

While I clearly don't work for the Copyright Office, I think you're naive to think that just because you've sent in 1000 pages that the Copyright Office keeps them.

Your form TX and accompanying materials are reviewed, at least in brief, by one of the Copyright Office's agents. I've certainly been contacted by these folks from time to time when they had a question about something associated with my registration materials. I would imagine that in the case above that 995 of the pages you have sent in get tossed. I would think that the Copyright Office sets requirements for a reason. I doubt that they are going to waste valuable resources just to accomodate an applicant's whims. Your documentation of all of your site's pages are on the CD you submit in addition to the 5 representative pages.

[critical damage]

Broadway, now that you put it that way.... it makes a whole lot more sense. So, just 5 representative pages and the entire website documented on cd-rom.
It does seem a little absurd to print out a couple hundred pages or more and sent it all in to the copyright office. If everyone took that approach, I'm certain that they (the copyright office) would eventually run out of space.

LuckyChucky, if the only thing that was being sent in were the "5 representative pages", then it would definetely be a problem in the event that one had to rely on the copyright office for proof of registration for an infringement case. But being that the website is still being "captured" on a CD, I think that 5 representative pages should be enough to print out and submit.

[Beagle]

There are two options - you pick one of them: either the entire site printed out, or the entire site on CD with the representative pages printed out. Wondering if possibly luckychucky's discrepancies come from referring to the Patent and Trademark Office rather than the Copyright Office. I wouldn't be surprised if the two offices would have different guidelines, but I don't see that many people would have the need to submit an entire site to the USPTO.

[stapel]

I've never sent any print-outs; I've only ever sent a CD. And I've never had any problems with getting the copyright processed. It just takes a while.

Eliz.