CSS and HTML Code May Be Copyrightable–Media.net v. Netseer

March 7, 2016 · by Venkat Balasubramani

Technology, Marketing, and Law Blog (Goldman’s)

Media.net and Netseer both offer contextual advertising services. Their clients place ad units on their website and, when visitors click on ads, they are taken to a “search results” page. Media.net accused Netseer of copyright infringement and various state law claims. Media.net alleges that Netseer copied Media.net’s HTML that generates the search results pages. While the parties disputed what the material sought to be copyrighted consisted of, it appeared that the bulk of it was a Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) markup. HTML is what you see when you click on “view source” on a webpage and is the basic outline of what when viewed in a browser looks like a webpage. CSS is, in rough terms, a set of formatting rules for a web page or site. A website’s HTML code will often include CSS. (This is a really simplistic description at best.)

Apparently, the parties competed for the services of a big client (Microsoft), and Media.net alleges that Netseer’s unauthorized use of Media.net’s code helped it gain an unfair advantage in negotiations. The key question is whether the HTML code is copyrightable at all. What aspects of a website (other than the content) is copyrightable is always a tough question.