Trademark vs copyright for a website
By BlockchainSignLast updated
A website is a bundle of separate works wearing one URL. Copyright covers most of the contents, trademark covers the brand, and the thing people most want to protect — the design — is the hardest part.
Key takeaways
- Copyright covers the code, the text, the images and, as a compilation, the selection and arrangement of content.
- Trademark covers the site's name, logo and, sometimes, the domain used as a brand.
- Layout and general "look and feel" are weakly protected, and functional design conventions are not protected at all.
The short answer
Copyright protects the contents. Trademark protects the brand. The layout falls between them and is the hardest to defend.
What copyright covers
Each element is protected in its own right:
- HTML, CSS and JavaScript, as literary works
- Written content — articles, product descriptions, help documentation
- Photographs and illustrations, provided you own or licensed them
- The compilation — the original selection, coordination and arrangement of the content
Copyright arises automatically. Registration is roughly $45–$65 and is required before suing in the US; note that a website changes constantly, so registration covers the version deposited.
What it does not cover: facts, common layout conventions, the idea behind the site, or functional aspects of the interface. A navigation bar at the top is not authorship.
What trademark covers
The site's name and logo are trademarks once used in commerce to identify goods or services. That is what stops a competitor operating a confusingly similar brand.
A domain name is a trademark only if it is used as a mark rather than merely as an address — see trademark vs copyright for a domain name, where this gets its own treatment along with the UDRP process for domain disputes.
The look and feel problem
This is what people actually mean when they ask about protecting their website design, and the honest answer is that protection is thin.
Copyright can cover a genuinely original visual design as a graphic work, and the arrangement of content as a compilation. But conventional layouts, standard interface patterns and functional design choices are unprotectable, and modern web design converges hard on conventions.
Trade dress is theoretically available for a site's overall look, but requires non-functionality and, in practice, evidence that users associate the design with you. It is rarely a quick answer.
Side by side
| Copyright | Trademark | |
|---|---|---|
| Code | Yes | No |
| Text and images | Yes | No |
| Selection and arrangement | Yes, as a compilation | No |
| Site name and logo | No | Yes |
| Domain as a brand | No | Sometimes |
| Layout conventions | No | No |
| Overall look | Weakly | Possibly as trade dress |
| Duration | Life + 70, or 95 years | Indefinite with use |
Two things worth doing
Sort out ownership. If an agency or freelancer built the site, they may own the copyright in the code and design absent a written assignment. This is the single most common defect in a company's website IP.
Keep a dated record of substantial versions. A website is a moving target, and infringement claims tend to arrive long after the version in question was replaced.
Where a timestamp fits
That last point is where this is genuinely useful. Site content changes continuously, and proving what your site said on a particular date is otherwise surprisingly hard — internal backups can be edited, and third-party archives are incomplete and outside your control.
Timestamping a release archive of the site, or particular pages at particular moments, gives a dated, tamper-evident record of exactly that version. It is the same practice as timestamping a software release, applied to content.
It records that the files existed unchanged on the date. It does not register copyright and does not prove authorship.
US law. This is general information, not legal advice.