Can You Copy a Website's Design? What's Legal and What Isn't

The content is protected; the general look is mostly not. In the US, copyright covers original expression such as text, photographs, illustrations and video. It doesn't cover the layout of a page or the ideas behind it.

The U.S. Copyright Office says a website "may contain text, artwork, photographs, music, videos, or other copyrightable content", but "the website itself is not typically considered a copyrightable work". Its list of material it won't register on websites includes "functional design elements", "the layout, format, or 'look and feel' of a web page" and "names, icons, or familiar symbols".

Code is a split case. The Office "generally will refuse claims consisting solely of style sheet languages, such as Cascading Style Sheets", but HTML written by a person can be registered as a literary work if it is creative enough. Scripts and other software can be protected as computer programs. Copying a site's source files is a different act from writing your own CSS that gives a similar result.

This is not legal advice. The sources here are US law and US Copyright Office practice; other countries have their own copyright, design and trademark rules. For a real project, ask a lawyer where you are.

Generally, yes. The Office "will not accept a claim to copyright in 'format' or 'layout'", and says the general layout of a web page "is uncopyrightable because it is a template for expression".

Ideas and methods are excluded by law: copyright doesn't protect "any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery". A two-column hero, a sticky header, an 8px spacing scale or hairline borders instead of shadows are ideas and methods. On colour, the Compendium of Office practice says "mere coloration or mere variations in coloring alone are not eligible for copyright protection", and combining "expected or familiar pairs or sets of colors" isn't copyrightable either.

Two caveats. A creative selection and arrangement of specific content can be protected, though only for that content, not for the arrangement itself. And a distinctive overall look can matter under trademark law (see below), even where copyright doesn't apply.

You can use the same typeface design, but you need your own right to the font files. US copyright doesn't protect typeface designs; it can protect the font software that draws them, and fonts are sold and shared under licences.

The Office's Circular 33 says "copyright law does not protect typeface or mere variations of typographical ornamentation or lettering", and its Compendium adds that this is true "regardless of how novel and creative the shape and form of the typeface characters may be". But a computer program that generates a typeface "may be registered if the program contains a sufficient amount of original authorship", and that registration covers the code, not the letter shapes.

In practice the licence decides. Free fonts under the SIL Open Font License can be used "in books, posters, artwork, logos, and on websites", bundled in apps and modified and shared again. Paid fonts need a licence of your own. Never download font files from someone else's site: install the font from its official source, buy a licence, or pick a free font with a similar feel.

Leave them alone. Names, slogans and logos are usually protected as trademarks, and a copy of a brand's overall look can be trade dress, even when no single file was copied.

Circular 33 says names, titles and short phrases aren't copyrightable, but "may be protectable under federal or state trademark laws". Trade dress is the design and packaging that identifies a product's source. Cornell's Legal Information Institute notes that the Lanham Act protects it when it serves the same source-identifying function as a trademark, and that 15 U.S.C. § 1125(a) protects it without registration.

The safe test: would a visitor think your site belongs to, or is endorsed by, the brand you admire? If yes, change more than the logo. Borrow the principles (restraint, rhythm, a type scale) and make the identity your own.

As a rule of thumb, decisions are borrowable and files are not.

Livery measures a site's style and labels everything that might belong to someone else. It also gives site owners the final say.

• LiveryBot visits a public page only when someone asks for a kit of it. It reads robots.txt and the owner's livery.json first, follows rules addressed to it or to *, and stops when it's blocked: no CAPTCHA solving, no getting round bot protection. Sign-in, checkout and banking pages are refused.
• Every font, icon set and asset in a kit is labelled: free to reuse (measured values, open-source fonts and icons), needs a licence (always with a free alternative named) or style only (logos, photos, illustrations, custom icons), which an agent should recreate in its own way rather than copy.
• A kit's reference folder can hold exact copies of what the page used, so an agent can reproduce it faithfully. Its licence file says those files still belong to the site's owner and should be used only where you have the right to (your own site, a licensed template, a client's files); otherwise keep the look and replace the files.
• Owners can opt in to share more through a livery.json file, or opt out: an opt-out file stops new kits and withdraws published ones. The takedown policy at /legal/takedown explains the rest: withdrawn versions are deleted, their links answer 410 Gone and the domain is blocked from future builds.