national copyright

[roses_for_tina]

i'm doing this project at school. were were asked the consequences of the following:

what if you stole a set of navigational icons from website in the UK, and used them in your website made in Canada? what could happen if you were found out?

i've been looking at the Berne Convention and it ensures that the UK is protected by the minimum

Comments

[trixiefirecat]

you may want to look up how creative commons works and find out if it's international or only applicable to US laws. it seems that if the site is not a commercial site, it may fall under creative commons [or maybe you'd get some credit for mentioning that].

in terms of willful copyright infringement, however, all i can say is that the law is already so complicated here that i am a little surprised you got this assignment--mean teachers! it seems like a trick question, in that stealing icons is a stupid idea when there is such cheap stock art and fonts out there. seems like the obvious answer is to just create them--but i'm sorry i can't actually help your actual assignment.

[fenmere]

Creative Commons is not a default. Copyright is the default. Anything finished by any creator is automatically protected under international law, and should ethically be left alone. Creative Commons, however, is a great licensing agreement that allows you to publicly give away some of the rights to your work. But it is completely voluntary on the part of the owner.

That said, if the creator of a piece of work does not clearly mark his ownership of that work, it tends not to stand up well in court.

[plexq]

I believe that is only true for countries who are signatories to the Berne Convention.

[fenmere]

I have never heard of the Berne Convention, Art 495 at WWU didn't cover it ("bad professor, no tenure!"), but that would make sense.

But my distinction about Creative Commons is important, none-the-less. It isn't like public domain. It isn't a state of copyright. It's just a license, like GNU or Open Source.

[lanisatu]

You might want to ask this in copyrightThe Canadian would likely receive a warning to remove the copyrighted work (a take down notice) from the copyright owner. Usually, this type of thing ends there. Canada doesn't have a DMCA (but you might want to look up Bill C-61, which many Canadians opposed). I'm not sure about the UK, but looking up information on DMCA for the country you're concerned about should help. It's good that you're looking into the Berne Convention, because that will play a major role if it goes to court