The governing copyright stfatute in the UK is the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988. This law offers copyright protection in the following categories:

• original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works

• the typographical arrangement of published editions of literary, dramatic or musical works or sound recordings

• films

• broadcasts

• cable programmes

Although the different categories of work are protected for different lengths of time, the periods are uniformly long and unlikely to have much practical impact, when the shortest is around fifty years from the establishment of the website. Website content is capable to be of being brought within many of these categories, so when bringing an action to protect your copyright your claim would depend on precisely which elements have been taken and which is regarded as forming the most substantial part of that taking.

Here is a typical application of the UK copyright law to a website:

• Literary works: A literary work is any work which is written, spoken or sung, apart from a dramatic or musical work provided, the work has been recorded, in writing or otherwise, before copyright will arise. It must be "intended to afford either information and instruction or pleasure in the form of literary enjoyment" This will normally exclude a single word or a title to a work , in both cases copyright is not offered. Advertising slogans and headlines are normally also excluded from being capable of copyright but with exceptions. In the USA, it is generally accepted that the work also needs to include a spark of creativity and in England one should expect the work to be original and include some independent form of expression achieved through the author's judgement, skill and labour.

• Musical and dramatic works: This protects the written rather than the performed version of such works.
• Artistic works: Websites are full of artistic material and their design often involves a considerable artistic care. Graphic works (which includes any painting, drawing, diagram, map, chart or plan), and photographs normally also attract copyright, regardless of whether or not these possess artistic quality. Originality however is a major requirement.

• First ownership of literary, musical, dramatic and artistic copyright: The creator of the literary, musical, dramatic or artistic work is the first owner of any copyright in it. However, in cases where the work is made in the course of the creator's employment, the default position is that the employer is the first owner. In cases where a consultant is commissioned or contracted to create a website, the copyright in it will belong to the consultant but it can be assigned or exclusively licensed to a commissionaire of the work. Both transactions will need to be in writing. UK copyright lasts for the lifetime of the author (or the last to die of joint authors) plus a further seventy years from the end of the year of death.

• Published editions: Copyright subsists in the typographical arrangement of a published edition of a literary, dramatic or musical work, the owner being the publisher. This applies to material published on a website which means that the author of the arrangement of a website has a copyright, lasting for 25 years after first publication.

• Sound recording: A sound recording is a recording of sounds from which sounds may be reproduced or a recording of the whole or any part of a literary, dramatic or musical work from which sounds reproducing the work or part may be produced. Recording made on a website or uploaded to a website attracts copyright because sounds embedded on a website are reproducible as part of a webpage. The copyright owner is the producer of the recording.

• Broadcasts: ‘Broadcast' is defined by copyright law as "transmission by wireless telegraphy". Since the Internet is dependent on the wires of the telecommunications system, transmission on the Internet is not broadcasting, which means that for now at least, there is no copyright protection through this medium.

• Cable programmes: In the important case of Shetland Times v Wills, it was decided that a website is regarded as Cable Programme which means that copyright protection is available through this medium.