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Can the markup surrounding a document, e.g. HTML, Markdown, LaTeX, et cetera, be copyrighted if the text is not?

I managed to run into a website that hosts my country's constitution, and the copyright page reads:

We reserve all rights to the HTML formatting and presentation of the entire Constitution and all accompanying documents as presented here. No reproduction of the HTML formatting is permitted without our express written permission.

Are they stretching it, or is this possible?

Edit: Thank you for the answers. The example above was never meant to imply "can I copy this website", rather whether this was possible.

Thank you, from what I have been able to gather, the HTML and presentation of the website is indeed, copyrightable. Much like the visual layout and presentation of the website here at superuser.

With regards to the text of the Constitution, certainly marking bold, italic and underlined texts (IANAL but) as I understand does not cross the threshold of originality, as answered below.

Amin Shah Gilani
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2 Answers2

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As a layman I’d say yes. Probably not every markup (think of threshold of originality or similar concepts), but there are cases where it’s presumably indisputable:

HTML can be used for styling the page (e.g., with the style attribute). And (graphical/web) designs can be copyrightable, right?

You can create vector images only by using XML elements and attributes (SVG). See the source code of this example.

Markup can be used in various uncommon/creative ways, e.g.

… including CSS poetry in HTML:

<style>#death,body{visibility:hidden;}</style>

… or Haikus in data-* attribute names:

<hr data-the-first-cold-shower--even-the-monkey-seems-to-want--a-little-coat-of-straw>

If the markup of your specific example falls under the copyright, or if it’s not reaching the threshold of originality or if it’s purely utilitarian and can’t be reasonably done in a different way, is probably a court’s job to decide.

unor
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There are certain things like corporate style that counts separately to content.

For example, the XYZ "for Dummies" is a presentation of book separate to the content, and thus a separate matter: you can't put out a book like "edlin for dummies" without going through one of the official channel (either an official book or a parody of the style).

So something like layout etc is a separate matter to content, especially if it is repeated across a number of pages.

wendy.krieger
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