ISSUES ABOUT THE INTERNET

WRTITTEN BY: MAHFUZAH BT SHAMSUDIN CLASS : PISM SEM 4 TESL (A) IC: 920505-09-5116

Nowadays the Internet is a wide-open source for information, entertainment, and communication. Many people believe that anything and everything go in cyberspace. I believed that myself, until becoming more informed. Sometimes, it is quest for knowledge and entertainment. Internet users cross over a hidden line. Without proper knowledge, users unintentionally break the copyright laws that govern the Internet. Many myths have caused people to believe copyright laws do not apply to the Internet. However, copyright laws are in effect in today's cyberspace. One of the biggest mistakes that people believe is that if a work has no copyright notice, it is not copyrighted. The correct form of a copyright notice is "Copyright or (date) by (author/owner)". Many people believe that if this notice is absent, they can post, use, or take any work on the Internet. Although no name can be copyrighted, the owner's work is. In fact, everything from April 1, 1989 is copyrighted by the owner or author whether it has a notice or not. Most nations follow the same rules set up by the Berne copyright convention. The Berne convention created uniform laws for worldwide works (Lussier 1). One of these laws was everything created privately and originally after April 1, 1989 is copyrighted. All Internet users must assume that the work is copyrighted, unless otherwise specified by the author. Many works on the Internet are available for public use. However, the author of the work must have explicitly granted it to public domain. If a work is in public domain, granted by saying "I grant this to the public domain," anybody who stumbles upon it can use, take, or copy without giving credit to the owner. Frequently a user can contact the author of the work and be granted permission to use it. I did that through electronic-mail and received positive results. Requesting permission is not hard. Most times the owner quickly grants a user access and respects him or her more for asking. Copyright laws protect original works, but not ideas or facts. The Copyright Act of 1976 grants exclusive rights to the copyright holder. A copyright protects original works such as: literary works, musical works, dramatic works, pantomimes & choreographed works, pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works, motion pictures and other audiovisual works, sound recordings, architectural works, compilations (databases for example), written words on a website, and software programs on a website.

The copyright holder has exclusive rights such as reproduction, derivative works (being allowed to alter it), distribution, and performance, and display, audio & video transmission. Fair use is one of the most important and least clear cut, limits to copyright. It permits some use of others' works even without approval. But when? Words like "fair" or "reasonable" cannot be precisely defined, but here are a few benchmarks. Uses that advance public interests such as criticism, education or scholarship are favored -- particularly if little of another's work is copied. Uses that generate income or interfere with a copyright owner's income are not. Fairness also means crediting original artists or authors. (A teacher who copied, without credit, much of another's course materials was found to infringe.) Commercial uses of another's work are also disfavoured. For example, anyone who uses, without explicit permission, others' work to suggest that they endorse some commercial product is asking for trouble! Yet, not all commercial uses are forbidden. Most magazines and newspapers are operated for profit; that they are not automatically precluded from fair use has been made clear by the U.S. Supreme Court. Those who copy others' text are ever more easily found on the internet with search engines. Titles, markers and the like may also enable owners to locate improper copies of sounds or images. Copyright law precludes most uses of others' works without explicit or implied permission. Because some uses are okay, people often ask which uses are okay. Such questions often miss the point. The most important risk is not of liability, it is of suit. Consider graphics for example. Those who use a relatively small amount of another's work -- if not copied in detail -- may face small risk. Still, it is much better to work from scratch. Things represented to be in the public domain may not be. People looking for graphics have an alternative -- commercial clip art sold for such uses. Unlike freeware picked up on the web, it should also have warranties against infringement. Litigation is expensive. People concerned about, say, the nuances of fair use must not become so entangled in legal details that they forget that anything generating income or interfering with another's potential income dramatically increases the chance of suit.

As the conclusion, the most compelling questions for all of us are: (1) is a proposed use of another's work likely to offend, and (2) Are expected benefits worth the bother and possible cost to resolve a dispute? Why not ask? Only if the owner says "no" does the second question need to be addressed.