Son of Web Pages That Suck

Chapter 4
Design Issues Even Martians Should Know

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Kids Today Don't Take Pride In Their Work

My old man loved saying “Kids today…,” and now I see why. Kids today don’t take pride in their work. When I was a young thug, I was taught not to leave any trace of my crime. Kids today are lazy. They just grab sites, change as little as possible, and figure the rest of the world is too stupid to notice.

Here are some examples of Kids Today:

  • Don’t change the table dimensions—they use the same dimensions as the original.
  • Keep the images from the old site and don’t even bother to modify their dimensions or change their names.
  • Don’t even modify the HTML tags, especially those with the name of the other site, and any other information that would lead someone back to the original site. If the original site’s tags are all uppercase, at least change them to lowercase.
  • Don’t bother to change the name of the style sheets they borrow, or they keep the same style sheet element name.

The simple way to look at the issue of using music on your site is this: If you didn't write it, you don't own it and can't put it on your site. In fact, even if you wrote a song, you may still not own it. John Fogerty was sued by his former record company for writing songs that sound like the Creedence Clearwater Revival songs he wrote years earlier, which the company owns. Hmm. And I thought the book business was tough.

Will some music copyright owner come after you if you use a sound file you shouldn't be using? Who knows? Why take the chance? The entertainment industry in general and the music industry in particular are very diligent about protecting their copyrights.

Finally, forget for a moment about the legalities of putting music on your Web site and just consider whether it's an effective strategy or a distraction. Nothing says "I'm an amateur, please make fun of me behind my back!" faster than using background music on your site. As always, there are exceptions: on a band site or a movie site, you're expected to put your songs on the site-but it would be most considerate of you if you didn't put them as background music.

Music on Your Web Site

No topic is "touchier" than music on a Web site. Here are a couple of important links that explain the ins and outs of what you can and can't legally do with music. Of course, none of this information should be put into practice without consulting an attorney. The rules on copyright vary from country to country.

"The Use of Music on a Multimedia Web Site" A very educational article phrased in terms that most people can easily understand. Full disclosure: I've used its author on a couple of contracts.

"Web Site FAQ" BMI is one of the leading licensors of music in the world, so it's their business to know what you can and can't do. My favorite quote about what's covered is their definition of a music page. "A music page is a web page with any links to audio, or multimedia files, that contain music. It can also be a page that has music playing upon the loading of the page."

"Copyright Basics" I just briefly touched on "borrowing" images but I haven't even touched on the issue of "borrowing" text from another site. Actually, that issue is much more complex because of the doctrine of "Fair Use." When you start to get involved in copyright issues, well, it's time for a lawyer.

Contracts

Get a lawyer. Anything else I’ve said earlier and now say and will say in the future about legal matters is not authoritative and shouldn’t be believed. Here are some links to articles on the topic, but they don’t take the place of a lawyer.

“Internet Library” Summaries of actual court cases. Not quite legalese, but tending in that direction.

“The Internet Law Journal” Another fairly complex site, but it has lots of depth. Temporarily unavailable.

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