Hilee Draehn
COMM 5350a
Lesson 15
"The world produces between 1 and 2 exabytes of unique information per year,
which is roughly 250 megabytes for every man, woman, and child on earth."
(Regents of the University of California, 2000)
With the birth of the Information Age, our society has been given limitless
resources to access information either digitally or through traditional print
sources, and with the ability to access such a magnitude of information, comes
the responsibility of being knowledgeable of the copyright laws when using this
information either in part or it's entirety. The most basic definition of copyright
states that only the creator of a creative work has the exclusive rights to
control whom can copy the work. Dr. Ingle states in Lesson 15, "you cannot
possibly know every rule and regulation, statute and/or legal interpretation
dealing with copyright and intellectual property concerns." Therefore, due
to many different subtleties in the law, it is important to have a list of sources
to use when deciding how to cite or incorporate works.
- While examining the information concerning copyright and intellectual property
issues, I stumbled across the following site from Tufts University. This site
is both a categorized catalog of questions and answers concerning copyright
issues, and a bulletin board that allows site visitors to post questions concerning
copyright issues. The document is easy to navigate and summarizes information
in clear, everyday language. Moreover, most answers to questions cite examples.
http://www.utsystem.edu/OGC/IntellectualProperty/cprtfaq.htm
- In the article, 10 Big Myths About Copyright Explained, Brad Templeton,
the author responds to common myths concerning copyright and intellectual
property issues and how it applies to users of the Internet. http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html.
On a personal note, I was unaware that linking to documents
could be considered a copyright violation. It is mindboggling to think that
even if someone sends a document to me that has copyright material in it,
and I access the material, I can also be held liable to a certain degree for
accessing/using copyrighted material without permission.
- Multimedia Development and Copyright Issues in the Maricopa Community Colleges
by Mary Lou Mosley, discuss the uncertainties that plague educators when trying
to develop multimedia materials for use in the classroom setting. The author
suggests guidelines that educators can follow to either copyright their own
work or use works from other sources while still adhering to the Copyright
Laws. http://www.technos.net/proceed/MMosley.htm
- The US Copyright Office Home Page gives factual data concerning how much
of a work can be used for different purposes, how to apply for a work to be
copyrighted, how to track down the copyright of a work, and cites links that
state the copy laws. http://www.loc.gov/copyright/
References:
How Much Information? © 2000 Regents of the University of California
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/how-much-info/summary.html