Copyright Implications Essays

Copyright Implications Essays Copyright Implications Essay Copyright Implications Essay Copyright Implications IT/236 January 17, 2011 [pic] A web designer or a novice needs to be very careful with copyright laws. The rules consist of five exclusive rights given to copyright owners under the Copyright Act. These laws are created and managed to prevent others from reproducing work or works created and owned by another person. No one can reproduce, publicly display the work, or distribute the work without the owner’s expressed permission. As a result, the web page author or authors need to be careful not to copy the work of others. This issue is so serious that the Internet service provider can be found liable for the copyright infringement even if they are not directly engaged in the copied materials, lawsuits will be implemented, and possible prison time can happen. Images If a web designer decides to obtain an image from the web and alter the image using a drawing or painting program, this will still infringe on the copyright laws. It is best to start from scratch and not alter another image from an original piece of work. Altering an image in this way is called derivative work. Taking an image from third parties is also taboo. Once the original image is fixed on a hard drive for the first time, it is protected by copyright laws. Any unauthorized copying of a protected image is an infringement of the creator’s copyright privilege. The originator can deem the image to be exempted through fair use, though. But unless the originator expresses this, it is not the case. Some licensed images, for example, the Internet Explorer logo may be copied, but the user must accept the terms of license first. In accepting the license, the user is excepting the terms within such license to use the image. The image will most likely not be able to be altered in any way. It can be copied as a link, only to a certain destination, but the web designer needs to be careful not to use it in a different way. He or she needs to follow the license agreement to use the logo with the link. Clip art is often provided with many applications. These images do not fall under the copyright laws as long as the web designer follows the terms in the license of the program. There are free images offered on the Internet. Some websites offer images to be used by others, but there are often stipulations of the use of the image. There are often terms proposed by the image creators. Most likely, the creators of the image want credit to be given to the author, including a link back to the author’s site. But if the image did not originally come from the creator, these images are already infringed upon; therefore they can not be used. Text Text on a website follows the same laws and stipulations as images. If the text is original, the copyright laws will not be infringed upon, but if the text is copied from another party, it will be illegal to display. The only exception is, if the originator gave expressed permission to use the text. Full credit to the author must be given. Another exception of the rule would be if the text was given under an expressed terms, of license agreement. A web designer should never assume a â€Å"free-use work† in a free in a public domain without independent investigations, showing that the work is from the original author. Scripts Developing any kind of scripts is time-consuming and complex, but they also fall under copyright laws. Many programmers and other users have made their scripts and applets available for the public. In this case, use is allowed as long as any requirements set fourth by the programmer are followed. Copyright laws are very complex to understand, but as long as a web designer understands these five rules, the work they create will most likely not violate the Copyright Act. The simple rule of thumb is, create original images, scripts, and text. But if some works need to be copied and used, make sure that full credit is given to the originator. References (1996-2010). Web Site Legal Issues. Bit Law. Retrieved from bitlaw. com/internet/webpage. html   (2001). Web Design That Wont Get You Into Trouble. Computer Libraries. Retrieved from infotoday. com/cilmag/jun01/kennedy. htm