Surfing the Internet can be a wonderful and educational experience. Information can be found from Acrobatics to Zebras and everything in between. Content from doctors, lawyers, individual experiences, artists, poets, you name it. It's out there. With all this content at the tips of our fingers it's easy to get and give the wrong message.

As webmasters we educate ourselves on coding languages, how file transfer protocol works and building the best websites from whatever we can grab on the internet. Technologies make easy work of saving text, graphics and more with a two or three click process. Our hands never have to leave the mouse.

Here is where problems can and do arise. A very good portion of those graphics and text are copyright. “That Mickey Mouse photo would be perfect on my Disney themed website!” But wait…that photo belongs to someone. Someone, whether a person or corporation owns the right to display that photo. That “someone” in this case happens to be The Walt Disney Co. and they say you can't use it.

So why are there copyrights? One year after George Washington took the oath of office and became the first president, the first copyright and patent laws were signed. The original idea was to protect against the physical reproduction of books and the protection lasted 17 years. In 1962 protection rose to 56 years, and has since been extended more than 11 times.

In 1886 the Berne Convention, (a treaty) was enacted by most countries regarding copyrights. And in 1997, 124 countries took part. There are however countries who do not adhere to the Berne Convention or it's amendments. These are Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Africa.

Along with extensions came new protections. Debates, court rulings and conventions have made just about everything copyright protected. More for monetary value now than anything else, copyright protection broadened enough to clog courthouses with suits ranging from a few dollars to millions.

A copyright is the protection of works created by an individual. Protection begins as soon as a work is considered tangible. (written, typed or recorded) and does not need to be registered to be copyright. To this point, the United States is the only country within the Berne Convention which does not require a copyright symbol on works to be protected. However, registration is necessary to collect any royalties due to an infringement.

Some common areas of misconception are:

Music downloads.
Royalty-free graphics.
HTML code source.
Screenshots.
Information used from the Internet.
What can and cannot be used.
And the biggest one of all…Fair Use.

Often times surfing the Internet, disclaimers abound with statements claiming “no affiliation” and “not meant to infringe on any copyrights”. While these may show some effort to prove an innocent approach for using content, more times than not are uneducated and incorrect. Taking the more common misconceptions, here is a breakdown of why using content unoriginal to the person using it may cause an infringement.

Music, or music available for download: Have you ever looked at the insert of a CD label? There will be a statement of copyright and words to the effect of “shall not be reproduced, redistributed or rebroadcast without express written permission.” This statement is serious! Bands, artists, recording companies and musicians all make money from the sale of a properly licensed CD. Music cannot be used for any purpose other than personal entertainment without i) written permission, ii) proper licensing from the authorized representative of the original artist. This includes some of the most widely spread form of reproduction, midis.

Royalty free graphics are just that. No monetary value is necessary for use of certain images. These graphics still must be used according to the “Terms of Use” of the originating site. Membership, return links and credit may be needed to be shown on the website using the images.

HTML code source: Technologies available within today's web browsers enable surfers to directly view the HTML source of a particular website. Many forms of infringement may happen here including a website being “ripped” or copied. The source code of a website is copied and pasted then uploaded to a new url. Sometimes the content within is changed, sometimes the website with the new url is passed off as the owner of such content. Many of today's webmasters create websites with HTML by hand. Just like the author of a book, the HTML itself is copyright and can not be reproduced.

Screenshots: When using a screenshot to portray a website, caution to avoid others copyright works is necessary. Content within the screenshot may not be original to the website and may possibly infringe on third party copyrights, privacy and licensing. An image used from the website portrayed may have permission, but posting a screenshot on another website is a form of redistribution.

Information used from the Internet: Using this article as an example, the text within, when complete, is copyright. Reproduction and redistribution needs to have written permission from the original author. Copying text content from another's website just can not be done without the author knowing about it.

And quite possibly the biggest misconception, and the most controversial is “Fair Use.” Statements like “some content within this website was used with fair use guidelines.” To put it simply, WRONG! Since a person cannot tell in advance what is fair, this term is used only in a court of law and only in the event of a claim of infringement! Someone has to feel slighted or ripped off in order to debate what was used may or may not be fair.

The guidelines of “Fair Use” that a court of law will use to determine usage of material and content are:

The United States Copyright law of 1976 [17 USC § 107] says:

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A [17 USC sects 106, 106A] the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include--

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;

(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.

So what can be used? Anything…with permission and/or proper licensing! Simply put, always seek permission from the copyright holder and follow specific terms of use.

About the Author
Marc Reposa
WECP ( www.wecp.net )
Eval-Techs ( www.eval-techs.org )