Articles>Intellectual Property>Copyright

The Culture of Sharing: Why Releasing Copyright Will Be the Smartest Thing You Do

A large number of us want people to be able to share ideas and communicate freely, without legal restrictions. And I’d go even further: we like it when creative people freely share their work with us, and allow us to use their work (or derivatives of it) in our own work. This is the Culture of Sharing that is growing on the Internet.

A Call for Copyright Rebellion

Copyright law was originally intended to protect those who create for profit (Lessig used the example of recording artist Britney Spears). But academics also create original works, he said, and they are — or should be — motivated by a desire to advance human knowledge, not line their pockets. Therefore, sealing their work behind copyright barriers does no social good.

Intellectual Property Responsibilities of Content Developers

As a technical writer, I develop content for the applications I'm supporting. Often that includes designing content, images, and multi-media to provide the best user experience possible. As content developers, however, we have a responsibility (both legal and moral) to ensure that the content we are using is being used properly and legally.

Intellectual Property and the Not-So-Free Web

When you think of the free Web in the context of not having to pay for something, remember that there’s another aspect: Nearly everything that’s on the Web belongs to someone. And because the Web is so widely accessible, it’s entirely possible that if you abuse someone’s rights regarding their intellectual property, they will discover it and exercise their rights.

Teaching Copyright

A balanced curriculum to help students understand and exercise their digital rights and responsibilities with intellectual property. Working with educators from around the country, the EFF aimed to design a fun and flexible plan that would not just provide information, but also help foster basic skills in research, writing, and critical thinking.

Is There a Chilling of Digital Communication? Exploring How Knowledge and Understanding of the Fair Use Doctrine May Influence Web Composing

Does law, or even the presence of the law, shape composing practices? Do fair use/copyright play a part in the web composing practices/pedagogy of students and teachers in technical communication programs as they construct web sites and design curriculum? The pilot study was intended to test the design for a larger study. The study aims to fill in gaps and resolve confusion about how fair use/copyright shapes digital writing.

Who Will Own Your Next Good Idea?

According to the International Intellectual Property Alliance, a trade group representing film studios, book publishers, and the like. Last year, the alliance says, copyrighted material contributed more than $400 billion to the national economy and was the country's singlemost important export. These figures may actually understate the value of copyright.

A Call for Realism

If there once was an implicit social contract in this area, it has arguably broken down on a personal, day‑to‑day level in much the same way that it did during the prohibition of the 1920s. Enforcement of copyright laws remains nearly impossible under existing Internet architecture for the type of private copying that takes place in cyberspace on a daily basis.

Adobe Captivate 3: Is It Legal to Add Copyrighted Music to eLearning?

I'm not a copyright lawyer (and I don't play one on TV). However, I have had more than one copyright lawyer in my Captivate classes over the past few years who have agreed that it is "perfectly fine to use copyrighted music in Captivate projects, provided the lesson you create is meant for educational purposes and that you do not use more than 10% of the copyrighted works or 30 seconds, whichever comes first."

A Savvy Approach to Copyright Messaging

A technique which allows photographers to add human-readable copyright messages to their work that stays with the photo but doesn’t get in the way of the vast majority of viewers who just want to enjoy the photo for a moment, and then go on with their day.

Real Web 2.0: Mastering the Creative Commons

The Creative Commons (CC) initiative develops popular licenses for content, including Web content. Some people think using these licenses means giving up all your rights to content, but this is just one of many misconceptions. Learn how to choose and use CC licenses for your Web sites and applications and how to process these licenses in code.

Copyright for Corporate Information Professionals: Staying Within the Law

Considers the role of copyright in the dissemination of information within the corporate sector. Examines the various forms of authorization available for companies using copyright-protected content to ensure compliance with copyright law. Discusses the distinction the law makes between copying for a commercial purpose as opposed to copying for a non-commercial purpose. Looks at the limited scope for businesses to rely on the copyright exceptions to justify their copying, particularly fair dealing. Considers licensing as a way of being able to do more than the copying exceptions would allow, and the interrelationship between contract law and copyright law. Outlines some copyright legal cases and the lessons we can learn from them. Sets out examples of copying activities that should be avoided if one wants to reduce the risk of being accused of copyright infringement.

A Comparison of Academics' Attitudes Towards the Rights Protection of Their Research and Teaching Materials

This paper compares two JISC-funded surveys. The first was undertaken by the Rights MEtadata for Open Archiving (RoMEO) project and focused on the rights protection required by academic authors sharing their research outputs in an open-access environment. The second was carried out by the Rights and Rewards project and focused on the rights protection required by authors sharing their teaching materials in the same way. The data are compared. The study reports confusion amongst both researchers and teachers as to copyright ownership in the materials they produced. Researchers were more restrictive about the permissions they would allow, but were liberal about terms and conditions. Teachers would allow many permissions, but under stricter terms and conditions. The study concludes that a single rights solution could not be used for both research and teaching materials.

Can Filesharers Be Triggered by Economic Incentives? Results of an Experiment

Illegal filesharing on the internet leads to considerable financial losses for artists and copyright owners as well as producers and sellers of music. Thus far, measures to contain this phenomenon have been rather restrictive. However, there are still a considerable number of illegal systems, and users are able to decide quite freely between legal and illegal downloads because the latter are still difficult to sanction. Recent economic approaches account for the improved bargaining position of users. They are based on the idea of revenue-splitting between professional sellers and peers. In order to test such an innovative business model, the study reported in this article carried out an experiment with 100 undergraduate students, forming five small peer-to-peer networks. The networks were confronted with different economic conditions. The results indicate that even experienced filesharers hold favourable attitudes towards revenue-splitting. They seem to be willing to adjust their behaviour to different economic conditions.

A Uniform Conceptual Model for Knowledge Management of International Copyright Law

Copyright issues are significant for worldwide information sharing, while mutual understanding about the commonalities and differences among international copyright law articles is difficult due to the diversity of legal knowledge representation. The goal of our research is to propose an appropriate methodology and capture a uniform conceptual model that will provide semantic level representation for processing and modelling international legal knowledge using ontological technology. This paper proposes a preliminary intention-oriented legal knowledge model as a pivotal model that, from the viewpoint of intention behind the law, manages and models legal knowledge derived from international law documents. We develop a domain ontology — international copyright law ontology, which is used as a fundamental conceptual framework to maintain consistency among diverse legal knowledge representations.

The New Copyright Law: Its Impact on Bio-Medical Communication

Under previous copyright legislation and jurisprudence, medical, and to a lesser extent, educational professionals, were afforded broad discretion under the judicially created fair use doctrine. The Copyright Act of 1976 creates a statutory definition of fair use and prescribes a test to be used in determining when a use is "fair" and when it is infringement. Central to this test is "impact of potential market value" of the material. Biomedical communication involves material with a very high unit cost which is not offset by anything approaching mass distribution. There is no special exemption for, or understanding of, biomedical communication in the new law, with the result that the potential for a restrictive impact is great.

Creative Commons: A New Way to Think About Copyright

PR people have been in the business of giving away content to reporters for so long that the matter of who owns the content—or who may use it under what circumstances— hasn't much concerned us. But our thinking about content and copyright is beginning to change as we put a rapidly expanding range of content on the web.

The Evolving Art of Rapid Response

How International Copyright Law Works

If you photocopy an article in the U.S., you apply U.S. copyright law. If you photocopy an article in France, you apply French copyright law. That's the way international copyright law works: You apply the law of the country in which use of the work is made. This is called "national treatment" and is the underlying principle in the leading copyright convention, the Berne Copyright Convention.

When It's Created, It's Copyrighted

The title above is, in a nutshell, the meaning of the copyright law as it pertains to creative works. Simple and straightforward: Whoever makes it, owns it and in turn grants legal permission for its use to you, the corporate client. Back in the day when you needed a negative or the original transparency to make a decent usable image, it was easier to safeguard photographs against unauthorized use. Now with digital technology, there is no difference between "original" and "duplicate," and copying images is, in some cases, all too easy.

Is Copyright Blind to the Visual?

This article argues that, with respect to the copyright protection of works of visual art, the general uneasiness that has always pervaded the relationship between copyright law and concepts of creativity produces three anomalous results. One of these is that copyright lacks much in the way of a central concept of 'visual art' and, to the extent that it embraces any concept of the 'visual', it is rooted in the rhetorical discourse of the Renaissance. This means that copyright is poorly equipped to deal with modern developments in the visual arts. Secondly, the pervasive effect of rhetorical discourse appears to have made it particularly difficult for copyright law to strike a meaningful balance between protecting creativity and permitting its use in further creative works. Thirdly, just when rhetorical discourse might have been useful in identifying the significance and materiality of the unique one-off work of visual art, copyright law chooses to ignore its implications.

Fair Use: What Copyrighted Works Can We Use?

Copyright laws permit us to make fair use of copyrighted works. We can reproduce and use copyrighted works if our uses benefit the public and if they will not adversely affect potential markets for the works. Generally, we can use copyrighted works for purposes such as the following: criticism, comment, news reporting teaching scholarship, or research. However we cannot unfairly make a profit from the use. Further, we cannot use more than a small portion of an entire work.

Web Design and the DMCA: Giving and Getting Take Down Notices

If you find yourself in the position of sending or receiving a Digital Millenium Copyright Act take-down notice, this informal checklist will help you get it right the first time.

New Media Economy: Intellectual Property and Cultural Insurrection

The new media landscape has created tensions between content producers (scholars, computer programmers, and even the general public) and copyright holders (institutional publishers and entertainment corporations) who are increasingly engaged in a form of culture war over access to and dissemination of information. This paper explores the emerging culture war as a struggle over definitions of culture and rights. On the one hand there are those who accept the traditional bargain between creators and society (sharing information, publicity, and reputation) and on the other hand are those who seek proprietary rights (ownership of material and all accompanying rights). Further, the battle over the definitions of intellectual property and copyright is taking place in a number of separate arenas including the music industry, academic publishing and the software industry. In each of these arenas the challenge of intellectual property in the digital age is manifested in similar yet distinct ways.

But There's Only So Many Ways to do Something, Right?

We're often victims of design piracy. Roughly once a week someone emails us with an anonymous tip that someone has ripped off our "UI look and feel" and is using it for their own site or their own app. It's amazing what people and businesses think they can get away with. We send the violators an email letting them know they can't take our work, our words, our code, or our design. 98% of the time the violators respond favorably and take the design down or alter it sufficiently that it's no longer recognizable as our design. 1% of the time it takes a few emails before they acquiesce. And 1% of the time it requires legal intervention.

Remix as "Fair Use": Grateful Dead Posters' Re-Publication Held to Be a Transformative, Fair Use

On May 9, 2006, in Bill Graham Archives v. Dorling Kindersley, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld the lower court, finding the use of several Grateful Dead Poster images appearing in a band biography was a 'fair use' under section 107 of the US copyright statute. In the case, the publisher Dorling Kindersley used without permission seven images of Grateful Dead concert posters or tickets in the book Grateful Dead: The Illustrated Trip (2003). Prior to the book's publication, the publisher had unsuccessfully attempted to negotiate permissions with the copyright holder, Bill Graham Archives. Due to what the publisher perceived as an unreasonable licensing fee, permission agreements were never reached. Nonetheless, the publisher used the seven images in the book, incorporating them into remixed compositions, consisting of collages mixed with graphic art and textual explanations and commentary. Over 2000 images were used in the book. After the book's publication, Bill Graham Archives brought suit for copyright infringement, and requested an injunction blocking further publication.

International Issues in Copyright: Frequently Asked Questions

The area of copyright can be confusing and presents numerous questions. Juillet provides answers to some common copyright questions, such as who holds the copyright in a work-for-hire situation and whether a copyright needs to be registered to have protection.

Copyright Do's and Don'ts

Copyright is extremely important in our economy today. Intellectual property fuels our economy to a great extent: 1/3 of the market of US stock, and 42% of gross domestic product. A copyright protects authorship, either now known or later developed. There are fundamental concepts of copyright: it needs to be in a tangible form and it needs to be eligible.

The Copyright Grab

The Clinton administration, through its white paper on intellectual property, is proposing a wholesale giveaway to its supporters in the copyright industry--at your expense.

Copyright, Commodification, And Censorship: Past As Prologue--But To What Future?

Copyright, commodification, and freedom of expression have often been viewed as harmonious and complementary concepts. In Harper and Row Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enterprises, for example, the Supreme Court characterized copyright law as the 'engine of free expression.' Holding a left-leaning news magazine liable for copyright infringement for publishing excerpts from Gerald Ford's forthcoming memoirs was not, in the Court's view, to condone an act of private censorship. It was in harmony with first amendment principles because copyright incentives would ensure that these memoirs would reach the public through the normal operation of the marketplace.

Intellectual Property and Economic Development: Opportunities for China in the Information Age

The information sector of the Chinese economy, although it has grown in recent years, remains a sector with a far greater potential for growth than has occurred to date. Intellectual property law can help fulfill China's further aspirations for growth of its economy. Markets for information products and services can only thrive when intellectual property rights are secure.

Intellectual Property Rights for Digital Library and Hypertext Publishing Systems

Computers and the concomitant capability they have provided for making copyrighted works available in digital form in networked environments have created many new kinds of expressive opportunities. Computer technology together with communications technology has enabled authors to create digital libraries and hypertext publishing systems. Active development of such systems is now underway. While some difficult technical problems must be solved to build these systems, technical obstacles are thought to be surmountable. Less clear, however, is what kind of intellectual property scheme can be used to make digital library or hypertext publishing systems commercially viable.

Anticircumvention Rules: Threat to Science

Scientists who study encryption or computer security or otherwise reverse engineer technical measures, who make tools enabling them to do this work, and who report the results of their research face new risks of legal liability because of recently adopted rules prohibiting the circumvention of technical measures and manufacture or distribution of circumvention tools. Because all data in digital form can be technically protected, the impact of these rules goes far beyond encryption and computer security research. The scientific community must recognize the harms these rules pose and provide guidance about how to improve the anticircumvention rules.

The Constitutional Law of Intellectual Property After Eldred v. Ashcroft

The past decade has witnessed an extraordinary blossoming of scholarship on the constitutional law of intellectual property, much of which focuses on copyright law. This article suggests that the scholarly debate will and should continue and that the proponents of constitutional limits are likely to enjoy some successes in the future, even if they did not do so in the Eldred case itself.

DRM {and, or, vs.} the Law

Copyright industries are hoping that digital rights management (DRM) technologies will prevent infringement of commercially valuable digital content, including music and movies. These industries have already persuaded legislatures in the U.S., the European Union, and other countriesto adopt broad anti-circumvention rules to protect DRM from being hacked, and courts have interpreted these statutes even more broadly than the lawmakers intended.

Economic and Constitutional Influences on Copyright Law in the United States

Despite the many signs of convergence of European and U.S. copyright laws, this article contends that copyright law in the United States will continue to differ in two significant respects from authors' rights laws of member states of the European Union.

Five Challenges for Regulating the Global Information Society

Information technology (IT) is unquestionably having a profound effect on many aspects of the social, cultural, economic, and legal systems of planet Earth. IT has enabled significant advances in global communications technologies, particularly the Internet, that make it more possible than ever before to contemplate the development of a global information society. (Originally published in Regulating the Information Society, Chris Marsden, ed., Routledge Press 2000.)

Intellectual Property Arbitrage: How Foreign Rules Can Affect Domestic Protections

Differences in national intellectual property rules may cause economic activity to shift from one jurisdiction to another such that a higher protection rule in one jurisdiction will be undermined by lower protection rules in other jurisdictions. This article illustrates this phenomenon with four examples: as to rules on the enforceability of anti-reverse engineering clauses of software licenses, the protectability of bio-engineered research tools, peer to peer file sharing, and exceptions to anti-circumvention rules. It considers several options nations may have to respond to intellectual property arbitrages, none of which is likely to be very effective.

Legally Speaking: Did MGM Really Win the Grokster Case?

MGM's media blitz has given the impression that the entertainment industry won an overwhelming and broad victory against peer to peer (p2p) file sharing and file sharing technologies when the Supreme Court announced its decision in the MGM v. Grokster case on June 27, 2005. MGM can, of course, point to the 9-0 vote that vacated the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' decision that Grokster could not be charged with contributory infringement because it qualified for a safe harbor established by the Supreme Court in 1984 in its Sony v. Universal decision (see my Legally Speaking column of June 2005). The safe harbor protects technology developers who know, or have reason to know, that their products are being widely used for infringing purposes, as long as the technologies have, or are capable of, substantial noninfringing uses (SNIUs). The Court in Grokster saw no need to revisit the Sony safe harbor. However, it directed the lower courts to consider whether Grokster actively induced users to infringe copyrights, a different legal theory.

Preserving the Positive Functions of the Public Domain In Science

Science has advanced in part because data and scientific methodologies have traditionally not been subject to intellectual property protection. In recent years, intellectual property has played a greater role in scientific work. While intellectual property rights may have a positive role to play in some fields of science, so does the public domain. This paper will discuss some of the positive functions of the public domain and ways in which certain legal developments may negatively impact the public domain. It suggests some steps that scientists can take to preserve the positive functions of the public domain for science.

Toward a New Politics of Intellectual Property

Until very recently, copyright has been on the periphery of law and public policy concerns because it provided highly technical rules to regulate a specialized industry. The politics of copyright largely focused on intra-industry bickering. The typical response of the legislature to such intra-industry struggles has been to propose that affected parties meet behind closed doors and hammer out compromise language that would thereafter become enacted into law. It didn’t matter much if the language negotiated in the heat of the night was incomprehensible (as has so often been the case) because the affected parties understood it, and that was all that mattered. Copyright law has, as a consequence, become highly complex and effectively unreadable. One reason why a new politics of intellectual property is necessary is that copyright now affects everyone.

A Brief History of US Fair Use

In our role as writing teachers, we’ve been asked to adopt 'post-modern practice' by releasing old-fashioned notions of single authorship and obsolete pedagogy that forbids plagiarism under a 'detect-and-punish' regime. Instead, we are to teach 'digital ethics' and Fair Use. But what exactly is 'Fair Use'? This is a doctrine we as writing teachers need to understand because while public figures such as Lawrence Lessig, Jessica Litman, and Siva Vaidhyanathan argue that the law needs to be changed, in the meantime we have classes to teach. Writing teachers increasingly teach writing on networked computers, and therefore our need to understand the basic doctrine of Fair Use is as great as our need to understand the rules of anti-plagiarism. This paper first reviews current US Copyright Law, and then briefly traces the concept of 'Fair Use' from its inception as 'fair abridgment' in 1700’s England to its current interpretation in US case law. US Copyright policy, the regime legally defining invention, imitation, compilation, and appropriation, is set through complex interactions between a variety of players. These influential interactions include the habits of writers. The tension between stakeholders who wish to share, and stakeholders who wish to contain and control information is viewed as a 'battle,' 'war,' and 'fight'. In this fight, the writing student and teacher thus become actors, willingly or not, determining how copyright operates. Because we as teachers are key players in the continual remediation of copyright policy, we should have a basic critical understanding of US Copyright Law and how Fair Use is situated within our copyright regime.

Technical Writing Jumping the Wall: How Technical Documentation/Writing Can Affect the Court's Evaluation of Intent to Infringe in P2P Contexts

What kind of textual evidence do courts now look at in light of the recent Grokster decision? What place does technical communication have in recent P2P court decisions? After examining the evidence courts have used from the Sony case to the Grokster case, the author argues that since texts generated and researched by technical communication have surfaced in P2P contexts as important evidentiary objects in court rulings (Napster, Aimster, Grokster), the field and its allies would do well to take notice. Using a lens of activity theory, the author argues that technical communication as a field can control its own future and ability to innovate by reseeing the texts that it creates, texts that are collected by courts as objects influencing determinations of the presence of intent to infringe (the current standard of liability in P2P contexts). With respect to legal liability, the best technical writing might be writing that stays invisible.

You Still Can't Touch This: Copyright Law, Hip-Hop and Tech Comm

Perhaps unfortunately, the field of tech comm has few, if any, well-known examples of what happens to those who donâ€™t pay attention to copyright issues. One of the most interesting areas in which to explore the perils of copyright violation is in the world of American hip-hop music. I will explore the similarities between the copyright issues faced by hip-hop artists, and those faced by technical communicators.

MGM v. Grokster: Implications for Educators and Writing Teachers

What are the implications of the MGM v. Grokster case for institutions of higher education in general, for research, for rhetoric and writing, and for writing teachers?

First We're a "Virus," Now We Kill People with AIDS

Discusses claims that creative commons have 'spread like a virus' and 'U.S. copyright income' could be at risk.

Copyright in the Twenty-First Century: The Exclusive Right to Read

The hottest of hot topics in the copyright community these days is the information superhighway, officially dubbed the National Information infrastructure.

Revising Copyright Law for the Information Age

Our current copyright law is based on a model devised for print media, and expanded with some difficulty to embrace a world that includes live, filmed and taped performances, broadcast media, and, most recently, digital media. That much is uncontroversial. The suitability of that model for new media is much more controversial.

On Author's Rights in Cyberspace: Are New International Rules Needed?

How will the availability of information over the Internet affect authors and their readers and publishers? Decisions over access to electronic information are being made on national and international levels with little regard for new technologies and their impact on new markets. New regulations may indeed only restrict access to information and impede the application of new technologies by authors and their audiences. Additionally, these legal solutions may only retard the development of more appropriate models for cyberspace.

The Second Enclosure Movement and the Construction of the Public Domain

We are in the middle of a second enclosure movement. It sounds grandiloquent to call it 'the enclosure of the intangible commons of the mind,' but in a very real sense that is just what it is. True, the new state-created property rights may be 'intellectual' rather than 'real,' but once again things that were formerly thought of as either common property or uncommodifiable are being covered with new, or newly extended, property rights. In this article, I try to develop the vocabulary and the analytic tools necessary to turn the tide of enclosure. I offer an historical sketch of various types of skepticism about intellectual property, from the antimonopolist criticisms of the Framers of the U.S. Constitution, through the emergence of affirmative arguments for the public domain, to the use of the language of the commons to defend the possibility of distributed methods of non-proprietary production. In many ways, it turns out, concepts of the public domain show the same variation in assumptions, and the same analytic differences, as the concept of property itself. I conclude by arguing that, for a number of reasons, the appropriate model for the change in thinking which I argue for comes from the history of the environmental movement. The invention of the concept of 'the environment' pulls together a string of otherwise disconnected issues, offers analytical insight into the blindness implicit in prior ways of thinking, and leads to perception of common interest where none was seen before. Like the environment, the public domain must be 'invented' before it is saved. Like the environment, like 'nature,' the public domain turns out to be a concept that is considerably more slippery than many of us realize. And, like the environment, the public domain nevertheless turns out to be useful, perhaps even necessary.

Hyperlinks, Frames and Intellectual Property

This paper is concerned with how the use of hyperlinks and frames to present material from another website may infringe the rights of the originating site.

Work for Hire for Nonacademic Creators

This article examines the Work for Hire Doctrine and its importance to technical communication instructors who prepare students to create intellectual products in workplace settings. The author explains how the Work for Hire Doctrine operates in practice, charts the progressive legal treatment of work for hire through case law, and calls attention to the developing trend in the courts to support a more protectionist stance regarding creative products.

Who Owns My Work? The State of Work for Hire for Academics in Technical Communication

The work-for-hire doctrine in intellectual property law is important to academics in rhetoric and technical communication. In this article, I explain the doctrine and the way it works, explicate related case law, and suggest treatment of work for hire by instructors and administrators in rhetoric and technical communication.

Innovation Architecture

As the original end-to-end architecture of the Internet is increasingly compromised, and as copyright and patent law expand their reach, the commons of code, content and creativity that launched the World Wide Web is being quietly smothered. While Lessig focuses on technology and the law, his dark prophecies are relevant to the practice of information architecture.

The Future of Copyright

At the 12th annual Computers, Freedom and Privacy meeting I was on a panel debating the future of intellectual property, in particular the issue of how copyright law is constraining technology. Other panelists included John Perry Barlow, Steve Metalitz of the IIPA, and fellow named Wrenn from Yahoo. As is so often the case, I was the only woman on the panel, and the only librarian. Oh, and I had five minutes to make my case. What you can't see here is that at the point when I said 'I am of course talking about librarians' the audience burst into applause. If you, reader, are a librarian, then that applause was for you. I wish you could have heard it!

The Technology of Rights: Digital Rights Management

Very briefly, thin copyright usually refers to a minimalist approach to copyright, giving works only as much protection as is needed to encourage creativity but with a goal of making works readily available to the public. Thick copyright is a more maximalist approach, and crudely put the goal of thick copyright is generally to maximize profits. We appear to be moving toward thick copyright, not only in this county but around the world in general. This movement is being spearheaded, as you might expect, by companies whose main product is in the form of intellectual property, such as books, movies and music. But there is yet another trend relating to the protection of intellectual property and that is the creation of technological controls to protect digital works. This is referred to as Digital Rights Management, or DRM. DRM is not a single technology and it is not even a single philosophy. It refers to a broad range of technologies and standards, many of which are still in the planning and development stage. DRM is not thin copyright, and it isn't even thick copyright; DRM is potentially a nearly absolute protection of works.

Safeguarding Intellectual Property

This 'best practices' note collects tips and techniques for preserving your investment in e-learning and other digital media, whether you are a buyer or producer.

How to Write Copyright Pages

A well-designed user guide contains a copyright page, which provides copyright information for your company's products as well as for any third-party products mentioned in your document.

Adding Watermarks to PDFs

How do I insert a watermark in a PDF document?

Knowing Your Rights

The increasing popularity of Web publishing isn't just changing the way that intellectual property (creative works such as text, images, and even software) is distributed, it's also changing the way such work is bought, sold, licensed, and - in some cases 'borrowed.'

Nowhere to Hide

To catch a thief, use the Web to track down plagiarism.

A History of Copyright in the United States

Since the Statute of Anne almost three hundred years ago, U.S. law has been revised to broaden the scope of copyright, to change the term of copyright protection, and to address new technologies.

Complying with the TEACH Act

On November, 2, 2002, the TEACH Act (Act) became law, fully revising Section 110(2) of the U.S. Copyright Act, governing lawful uses of works protected by copyright in distance education. By complying with the TEACH Act, certain copyrighted works may be used for distance education without permission from, or payment of royalties to, the copyright owner—and without copyright infringement.

Copyright Quickguide

Learn basic copyright information quickly.

Fair-Use Issues

How to appropriately and lawfully use existing copyrighted materials in teaching, research, and other activities.

Understanding Copyright

This panel discussion is designed to help independent contractors understand some basic concepts of copyright protection. The panel will discuss the legal fundamentals of the copyright law and practical applications of the law. The panel will provide different perspectives from three points of view: an independent contractor, a technical writer who works for a large corporation, and a lawyer.

Clearing Rights for Multimedia Works

The ground-breaking aspects of undertaking to create a multimedia work are more than just technological; much as the technology is growing by leaps and bounds in response to the needs of creators and consumers, so also must the methods and techniques for transferring from owners to new creators the rights to utilize existing works. As this industry began to take on form and vision, much excited speculation and wonder quickly turned to disbelief, if not outright horror, as creators began to understand what a labyrinth 'clearing rights' would be.

Walking the Labyrinth of Multimedia Law

Recommends discovering and documenting the origins of each work used in our products to ensure that we hold the appropriate rights. Advises working with counsel and contract negotiators to ensure that all requisite licenses, releases, and other documents are obtained.

A Copyright Cold War? The Polarized Rhetoric of the Peer-to-Peer Debates

Participants in the United States’ ongoing debates over peer-to-peer transfers of potentially copyrighted files have regularly trafficked in the rhetoric of warfare. While it is easy to understand how copyright holders would view peer-to-peer file transfers as a kind of attack, the rhetorical turn toward the discourse of military conflict has radiated throughout the debate. Individuals from across the spectrum of opinions on peer-to-peer file transfers both accept and reproduce the positioning of this public policy debate as a life-or-death struggle. The weaknesses of this comparison are illustrated through reference to the history of the Cold War, often cited as a model for the post-Napster period. Further, the relative immaturity of the peer-to-peer debate is demonstrated through reference to rhetorical analysis techniques suggested by stasis theory. This article concludes by suggesting ways in which the currently stalemated debate might be revitalized by principled interventions from scholars and concerned citizens.

CyberLaw and You: What New Media Communicators Must Know

As our world changes, so, too, do the laws to which we are subject. Gone are the days of the 'wild, wild web.' Here are the days of increasing regulation, at both the state and Federal levels, of the Internet. Recently enacted Federal legislation includes the Copyright Extension Act, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the Digital Theft Deterrence Act and the Anti-Cybersquatting and Consumer Protection Act. Looming on the horizon in a number of states is the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (UCITA), which, when enacted by the individual states, will force significant changes to how anyone operating in the computer industry will conduct his or her business. In addition, case law continues to evolve in trademark, jurisdiction and other areas related to the Internet and electronic content.

Applying Copyleft To Non-Software Information

Copyleft contains the normal copyright statement, asserting ownership and identification of the author. However, it then gives away some of the other rights implicit in the normal copyright: it says that not only are you free to redistribute this work, but you are also free to change the work. However, you cannot claim to have written the original work, nor can you claim that these changes were created by someone else. Finally, all derivative works must also be placed under these terms.

The Great Giveaway

Good ideas are worth money. So why are hard-headed operators giving them away for free?

Intellectual Property Law Primer for Multimedia Developers

This primer will help you understand the legal issues in developing and distributing multimedia works. It is based on the Multimedia Law Handbook from Ladera Press, which has been endorsed by the Interactive Multimedia Association. This summary of the law should not be viewed as 'answering' most questions (the Multimedia Law Handbook discusses these issues in more detail in 340 pages and includes eighteen sample agreements to show how these issues are dealt within actual transactions; you can order the book by calling 800-523-3721). Legal matters in multimedia are frequently complex and you should not rely on the information in this primer alone. You should consult with experienced counsel before making any final decisions. Multimedia products require a knowledge of the four major forms of intellectual property as well as the laws governing rights of publicity, defamation and libel.

Shifting Boundaries of Intellectual Property: Copyright, Intellectual Property, and Publishing on the WWW

The following set of links provide information on issues of copyright intellectual property, and fair use.

Derecho de Autor en Internet

En este artículo vamos a introducir los conceptos básicos sobre Derecho de Autor (copyright), prestando especial atención a las obras y recursos publicados en el entorno Web.

ECMS: Sistemas Electrónicos de Gestión del Derecho de Autor

En plena era de la información, las posibilidades que brinda Internet como medio de comunicación de masas ha incentivado a muchos autores a utilizar la red de redes para promocionar, publicar y difundir sus obras. Cualquier usuario o cliente, desde su casa y con un simple 'clic' de ratón, puede acceder así a estas obras intelectuales en cuestión de segundos. Pero la misma definición de información electrónica conlleva que, del mismo modo, cualquier persona pueda infringir los derechos de autor, tanto patrimoniales como morales, con un simple 'clic' de ratón.

Marcos y Enlaces Profundos

Algunas de las prácticas tan normales y simples como las explicadas en este artículo, pueden llevar a infringir el Derecho de Autor.

Statement of Principles for the Management of Copyright in the Digital Environment

As the twin technologies of computing and telecommunications revolutionize the way in which knowledge and information is recorded, accessed, disseminated and stored, the modes of communication among scholars and researchers are changing rapidly. But just as these technologies can make possible the wide dissemination of copyright material that may violate the rights of the owner, so the technology can be used to prevent reasonable and necessary access to knowledge. Such access is essential to the generation of new knowledge. If access to information for research, teaching and study purposes is constrained, Canada's long-term economic and cultural growth will be hobbled.

A Software Copyright Primer

Copyright protection for software can be a valuable tool. But how do you get that protection, how long does it last, and do you need a registration?

Copyright Matters Online

A PowerPoint presentation on recent developments in intellectual property law, and their cultural significance to content producers and consumers.

Curing Those Copyright Blues

Soon there may be an easy way to avoid stepping on someone else's digital music rights. (Yes, I know, information wants to be free and all, but you need to pay attention to digital rights. Just look at Napster.)

IRTC Copyright and Intellectual Property

This page is a list of links to sites that contain information about copyright.

Placing Copyright Notices In Documentation

There's no legal reason not to include a copyright notice on every page of a printed manual, every slide of a PowerPoint presentation, or every page of a Web site. But, of course, too many copyright notices can become unruly and unattractive, so the practical question is whether there is a legal reason why copyright notices should be printed on every page of a document.

Using Parts of Another Company's Documentation to Supplement Your Company's Documentation

Although in some parts of life, as the saying goes, 'it's easier to ask forgiveness than to ask permission,' that's certainly not true in copyright law. It's very important to ask permission, because if you don't, you could be committing copyright infringement. In some instances, you may be able to use small portions of the other company's documentation without asking permission, under the 'fair use' doctrine of copyright law. However, this doctrine is highly fact-specific and often confusing; in other words, it's impossible to provide a blanket rule about how many paragraphs or words you can copy without violating the law.

Ownership Issues in Copyright Law

Among the most commonly litigated issues in U.S. copyright law are those related to copyright ownership. When more than one person or entity is involved in the creative process, questions often arise about who owns the copyright in an original work, and the answers can have significant consequences. This article explains the importance of the 'work for hire' doctrine as well as the rules governing 'joint' copyright ownership.

Inspiration vs. Theft: The Thin Gray Line

Inspiration does not come easy for most, and that includes some of the world's top designers and creative directors. Everyone has experienced what we call 'designer's cramp' (a designer's version of 'writer's block') at some time or another. There have been numerous articles about the problem and a ton of suggestions. Some of them work, but many fail miserably. Lance Arthur recently wrote an article in A List Apart called 'Creative Notions,' which is one of the best I've seen in a long time about the sketchy subject. Coincidentally, Lance is perhaps one of the most widely known designers on the web today, and therefore suffers from a great deal of plagiarism. When asked about this, he says, 'A dubious distinction, surely. I think having a somewhat higher profile than other personal sites contributes to my reign under this title.'1 Why is that? I believe because he is a creative person whose designs are original and inspirational. However, as long as web browsers come with the 'view source' button, plagiarism

Authors' Rights

With the advent of powerful networked desktop computers and the World Wide Web, authors have for the first time acquired control of the technology for scholarly communication. That radical change prompts the question of how authors have in the past fared under copyright law, and how they might fare in the future. Anglo-American copyright law has always attempted to regulate the interests of three parties: the author, the publisher, and the public. Before there was a formal copyright law, royal patents granted to the Stationer's Company created printing monopolies and facilitated state censorship. The concerns of authors were hardly considered. The 1710 Statute of Anne, our first formal copyright law, left printers the dominant power in relations between printers and authors. What is most remarkable about the Statute of Anne is that the state's interest began to shift from censorship toward the creation of a public domain for intellectual property.

Who Owns What? Intellectual Property, Copyright, and the Next Millennium

This issue of JEP discusses e-publishing's intellectual-property issues.