Protecting Content Online: The Interface of Copyright and Design for Websites, Apps, and GUIs

Abstract

Intellectual property law continues to be challenged by new technologies. Although patent law recently went through a substantial revision with the America Invents Act, a number of questions remain about how to apply existing copyright law to digital works in all kinds of formats, including text, databases, audio, video, websites, graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and applications (apps), to name but a few. Moreover, the intent of developers of these materials is to make them available on smaller devices, such as tablets, mobile phones and even wearables. Of course, one aspect of copyright law for this material focuses on how to protect the content itself, such as the text, images, video, audio and databases delivered through a website. One of the important considerations is that this is different than in a print world, with the content of websites not being static but rather dynamic. In fact, a company or non-profit organization that wants to remain high in the consciousness of its constituents and to appear at the top of the list of web searches will need to update its content on a regular basis, perhaps including a blog, which provides an advantage in search engine optimization. Because the content of a website may be continually changing, how do we protect it under traditional copyright law or are there other options that are more appropriate?