Legal Question in Technology Law in Missouri
Website address
I sell dollhouses on ebay. Buyers were emailing me to ask where they could find wallpaper for their dollhouses and other items that they could put in their dollhouses. So I jumped online and started hunting. I found over a period of time about 20 sites that looked really good for them to go to. I made a list and built an auction, stated that for the starting bid of 3.00 for my time hunting that I would send them free websites where they could find information on Tips and items for their dollhouses. They know that the sites are free and the auction is for my time. I got 3 emails from angry ebayers that said I was breaking the law because they are copyrighted. No one that emailed me had won an auction,so they certainly didnt even know what sites I gave. I sold 5 of them. Totaled 15.00 After I got the nasty emails I decided I didnt want bad emails coming so I ended the auction early and sold no more. I was under the impression that copyrighted meant I could not copy their stuff that was on their website, not that it meant I could not send people to their website. Was I wrong to do this? I know if it was not right going to jail or getting sued for making 15.00 certainly was stupid on my part. Was I wrong???
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Website address
They are both right and wrong. If the internet site itself is listed in the DNS servers, it's name (no matter how clever or unique) is not "copyrighted" but it may be protected by a trademark. You can't appropriate the trademark as your own, and you can't republish information from the website on your list. You can't even take screenshots and use the screenshots on your list. But you certainly can list the "www" address of the sites without a copyright claim.
What you are doing is no more unlawful or improper than what Ma Bell does when it puts together a phone book. They are compiling a listing of publicly-available information. You are doing the same thing. You are publishing a list of publicly available information. Your list, actually, is copyrightable because it reflects your work. You compiled the information, and while you can't claim a separate individual copyright on "dollhouse-wallpaper.com" that you list in your compilation, you can claim a copyright on the compilation itself.
If what you sold was a list, and you did not publish that list on the internet, there is no claim of copyright infringement that could be made against you.
If I were you, I'd go back out with the list, but now I'd offer to sell the list with your "ratings" of the sites and additional information about what the sites offer.
By the way, lots of people send angry emails; it's a cost of doing business.
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