Technology Startup Website Copyright Registration Strategies

Website copyright registration for technology startups can take many forms according to the predominant copyrightable content. Owners of Technology startup websites, like websites of other companies, sometimes require legal protection including website copyright registration, patent filing and protection, and trademark protection among other types of intellectual property barrier strategies.  When any text, images, video, graphics, and source code is considered to be an “original work of authorship” and is “fixed in a tangible form of expression” copyright protection attaches.

Copyright protection in United States applies to:

• Literary Works
• Musical Works, Including Any Accompanying Words
• Dramatic Works, Including Any Accompanying Music Pantomimes And Choreographic Works
• Pictorial, Graphic, And Sculptural Works
• Motion Pictures And Other Audiovisual Works
• Sound Recordings
• Architectural Works
• Computer Programs

Website Copyright Registration Considerations

An individual work that appears on a website can be registered if it constitutes copyrightable subject matter and contains a sufficient amount of original authorship.

The registration in the US Copyright Office of a website may be registered according to the predominant copyrightable content. For example, if a technology startup venture want to protect a blog post consisting mainly of text, the company can register the blog entry as a literary work.

If another tech startup in Los Angeles or other cities in the United States seeks to protect a musical work that is available on a website, the company may register it as a work of the performing arts. And in another example, if a photography studio displays or distributes photographs on a website, the studio or individual photographer may register the images as visual art works. An important consideration that may inform the copyright registration strategy is that work, whether they are source code, graphical images, text, music, or other content, that are located on a website are registered in much the same way as any other work, and the Copyright Office applies the same rules when examining them.

Publishing a work on website, rather than a mobile application, may not necessarily affect the copyright protection or copyright registration strategy of the work. Consulting with a qualified technology startup attorney knowledgeable about copyright and related intellectual property law issues, including patent and trademark protection, as well as licensing options, can help inform a tech startups website copyright registration, and other proprietary asset protection measures to capture and maintain maximum market share.