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Many websites have the "copyright" line at their footer.

I'm making a site of my own, and I don't know what does "Copyrighting" it implies. Should I just claim it is "copyrighted", should someone else certify it?.

Should I choose a CC license? What should I consider in order to decide my license?

The site is built by me but gathers user information to function.

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Copyright in all legal systems I know about exist at the act of creation: namely, by the fact that you create something, you own the copyright of it (unless you relinquished to someone else, like when you are employed), and you can decide its license accordingly. So no, you don't have to certify anything with a third part, although if you want to demonstrate the original date, you could ask a lawyer to certify when you first created a particular writing. That strongly depends on what you are doing, but for websites in general the issue is not that formal.

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just put copyright Jj 2010. You made it, and you were the first to publish it. If your worried just take a screenshot with the date on it. trademark is the one that is painful and expensive.

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I'm not a lawyer, but here's what I remember from University:

  • Copyright for anything is automatic; you don't need to pay for or register it.
  • Trademarks need to be registered and paid for, but are usually just for branding.
  • Patents are available, but rare for software, and usually don't hold up in court.

When I say software, this term can generally also be applied to websites.

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If you wrote it, you own the copyrights, whether or not you state it. If you hired somebody to build it, and the contract doesn't say that you are licensing it from the author, then you own the copyrights.

It is good announce your copyright ownership on your web site.

If you want to let others copy it, then, by all means, license it out. But practically, there is not point doing it for web sites. Most people who copy from the web copy ideas (not copyrightable) and not full expressions of the idea (e.g. your site).

If your site has user-generated content, you may want to make the ownership of the data (not the code) explicit in the "terms of service" and/or the "privacy policy".

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