I recall Lisa explaining in one of her videos, about Copyrights, but it was more about stealing content-copying someone else's text or images.

A couple of areas I would add caution to...Templates and Images (I will add a seperate post about images and text)

Years ago I designed a website using Front Page. (Perhaps Dreamweaver and some of the other web editors, may have the same process). At any rate, Front Page allows one to download a copy of any website and redesign the template it as yours if you wish.

I found a video editing layout on someones site that I liked and so copied it to Front Page. I deleted all the sites information, (In order not to copy their content or images), then took liberty with the layout and changed it here and there to meet my requirements.

I then added my own content, images and links and posted it to my webhost. A few weeks later, I received an email from the website that I had copied the template from, informing me that I had violated her copyright, and ordering me to take down my site.

Evidently, this person had used a web design firm to design her site. As part of her agreement, they tracked on a dialy basis all clicks to her site. As she informed me later, my IP address turned many times on her site, without so much as a request for her product. What that signified to her designers, was that someone was probably violating her copyright and stealing her content.

In the end, she turned out to be very pleasant and even offered to help me out.

What I didn't realize at time, was that the template was copyrighted. Even with all the major changes that I had made to it, the basic template itself was copyrighted and could not be used or redesigned.

Nowadays, there are plenty of free template sites around. I haven't checked out Site Build IT yet, buy many give you dozens of templates you can use or change without limit. My only caution would to be extremly vigilant, downloading and changing someone elses web template as your own.

Thanks SGTMAC

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Shaun
http://www.geekdout.net ~ Simplifying Tech One Post at a Time
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Having had a military website for some time, I eventually came to a point where I ran into the need to find more information/images to go along with something I had written.

I can't recall the exact percentage, but lets say that 90% of the site was mine, and about 10% or less was copyrighted stuff-text and/or images that I had asked for permission to use.

On one occassion, I had researched my granddad's time during an Army bootcamp in Camp Dodge, Iowa. Although I had quite a bit of information, text, some images etc., I wanted to expand the storyline and add some more relevant information.

Perhaps the most rewarding part of asking someone if you could use their copyrighted material-text and/or images was the willingness of people to let you actually use their material.

I would start off, researching and recording the exact text and information I wanted to use, where it was located on their site and be respectful in asking for permissions. I added the reason I wanted to use their material, gave them the URL of my site and told them exactly how and why I wanted to use it. As an incentive, I would offer to link back to their site, and put a copyright notice on any materials used, reflecting their permission.

The exact numbers are fuzzy, but probably out of 25-30 requests, I can only recall being denied once or twice.

In one particular instance, I was declined permissions, because my site was on a free web host and the webmaster didn't like the banner ads on smoking that they displayed. A year later, I went to a paid host, and sent another request, which was granted.

Now I don't know if this will work for sites such as Lisa's or others trying to sell things. The military is a close knit community and it was more storylines and images we were displaying, not selling.

The jist of the story though, is that if you don't ask, you'll never know!

Thanks for sharing that tip, sgtmac66. It indicates to me that you do some excellent work. Glad to have you with us.

One related value I see from following your advice is that it gives your site a quality of having authoritative and reliable content that is hard to attain sometimes.

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Well like some of us, I learned the hard way, by trial and error. I basically had no idea how to go about such things when I first started out, and there was little in the way of help online-like Lisa's site in those days. Copyright issues were nothing more than reading legalize from some lawyers site, which was confusing at best.

The biggest help was from like minded people whom had already established military webistes. Two in particular were free with their advice and help. Without them, I would have been left out in the cold.

I think the biggest mistake people make is not understanding, that you can't just copy and paste any text or image onto your site and your ready to go!

Today though, there are lots of Public Domain or Creative Commons sites where you can use text/images,sounds, as long as you check out and make sure you have the proper rights and documentation.

One thing I have always done from the get go, starting with my miliary sites, was to save copyrighted text and/or images that I had permissions to use, along with an email with the permission, and the url from which it was had.

If your ever confronted by copyright infringement, at least you have the documentation and proof from where you got it.

Thanks for you kind response

sgtmac...and anyone else who reads this. I've always loved trying to live life by this motto. Learn from your own mistakes only when necessary, because it's much smarter to learn from everyone else s so you never make any. Lol.

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Shaun
http://www.geekdout.net ~ Simplifying Tech One Post at a Time
http://www.pamshodgepodge.geekdout.net ~ My Moms Coupon/Savings Site
http://www.twitter.com/geekdout ~ Twitter Me

I only wish we could learn without making mistakes, lol, but it's part of life. But like we all said, if you can get someone to help you along the way, it's a heck of a lot easier.

GreaT Tips Sgt, you know what you're talking about.

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