Can you copyright meta tags? Options

[eightpoint]

Hi,

Simply, the information contained in meta tags do you break any copyright issues if you use an exact copy from another site, trademarks and company names excluded.

Eightpoint

[thirstymoose_2000]

There was a case in the States where one competitor sued another for using their tradmark in META tags. Can't remember the two companies involved, but the plaintiff did win.

I ran across a worse situation where a competitor registered their main competitors name as a domain that redirected to their own web site. THAT my friends is dirty pool! They could take action against that, but they don't seem to care for some reason. Wonder how much potential business they could be losing.

[-Phoenix-]

Interesting. I have been kinda following the trademark and copyright law in this area. Its kinda fuzzy at times. As the plaintiff usually does come out with their term being removed from the meta tags, but at the same time the courts saying users should expect some sort of rubbish when they search for websites.

Here is a link to two recent cases:
http://www.out-law.com/php/page.php?page_i...abuse1078753419
This one is from the UK, court claims its not a trademark infrigement
http://www.out-law.com/php/page.php?page_i...filed1102517378
Company sued for use of trademark term "BDI Blood Diagnostics" in there meta tag, I assuming description.

Apparently they are pretty strict in the UK about this type of abuse. I have only seen one or two suits that have been followed in the US and I can't seem to find the links to those. In the UK, its something classified as a legal wrong or called passing off I believe.

In the first link to the court case the Judge decided:

Nor did the Court find any evidence of trade mark infringement – there was simply no confusion.

Finally the Court considered the use of the term in invoices, press releases and in advertising.

So a bit of a gray area, I guess it comes down to how you use it.

[Black_Knight]

I believe that under most variants of copyright law, a meta tag is (if correctly formed) of too short a length and of too little 'artistry' to count as potential 'intellectual property'. Basically, even if you could copyright a meta tag, unless it was uselessly long, people could perhaps be able to use the whole thing anyway under acceptable use, because it is so brief that the whole thing would only count as a snippet.

So, (a) I don't believe you could copyright it and ( I don't believe that even if you could copyright it, you'd be able to prevent others using it. Only registered trademarks are likely to be 'protectable' in meta tag use.

[-Phoenix-]

Ammon, great point in regards to copyright and the differences with trademarks. I wrote a small piece on the topic of trademarks just now. http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/001248.html

One of the courts decided that a term is only infringing upon a trademark depending on how its used. Others basically said you have to take it out, and another one thought the lawsuit was completely frivolous.