Images

Photos that you have taken are safe to use on your Web sites because you hold the copyright to them. Anything else is less clear. Just because you find a photo on a fan page, for instance, doesn't mean the owner of the site secured permission to use it. Unless you use images from clip art pages that expressly grant permission for their use, you may be infringing someone's copyright. (And sometimes even then you can't be completely sure.)

Bart Simpson The Fox network is particularly vigilant in shutting down fan sites that infringe its copyright and trademark rights. In 1995, lawyers for Fox's Licensing and Merchandising Division sent a cease-and-desist letter to the owner of a fan page devoted to The Simpsons. Fox has also gone after fan pages based on The X-Files and Millennium, sparking protests from the programs' fans.

Paramount has gone after online Star Trek fan pages. Trekkies organized the Online Freedom Foundation in 1997 to protest the crackdown, but most fan sites remain down. Paramount launched an official Star Trek Web site which was accessible only to those on the Microsoft Network, but that site has since been replaced by an official Star Trek page on Paramount's Web site.

TM

Another potential pitfall is the use of logos or other trademarks. A trademark is a word, term, name, symbol, or device that distinguishes the goods or services of one company from those of another company. Companies are concerned about the use of their trademarks online if the use would "dilute the distinctive quality" of the mark.

Companies must protect their trademarks, because if a trademark loses its ability to distinguish one company's goods from another's, its owner can't prevent other companies from using the mark. Companies also worry that the use of their trademarks on unofficial sites could be misconstrued as official endorsements.

For example, the owners of the Roadkills-R-Us Web site were
sent a cease-and-desist letter from attorneys for the toy store Toys-R-Us because of the "likelihood of confusion" and possible trademark dilution.

Other trademark disputes

Recently the U.S. Congress has taken action to prevent "cybersquatters" from registering companies' trademarks as domain names, arguing that such acts tend to "dilute" the companies' trademarks. Using a company's trademark in your metatags may bring you a lawsuit as well.