This is Internet On The Air, I'm Joan Silvi...Copyright law on-line in a moment...
Funding Credit: Internet On The Air is a production of the University of
Michigan School of Information and Michigan radio, made possible by a grant from the W.K.
Kellogg Foundation.
You are a busy person. You want to keep in touch with friends but don't
have the time. So you create a Web page called "My Life" and e-mail everyone the
URL address. But what if a total stranger changed your Web page. Is it legal?
Current copyright laws only address copying and changing tangible evidence of
intellectual property like books, CDs and movies -- things you can hold. But you can't
hold a Web page, but you can copy it and change it instantly.
When a user accesses a Web page, information is stored in the computer's memory for an
instant. Some experts say that this brief interval of computer memory is as real as a book
and therefore copyright laws apply. Others argue that browsing through a Web page is like
browsing through a book at a bookstore, only once you're finished, you return it to the
Internet instead of the bookshelf.
Recently, a bill to change current copyright laws was introduced. The bill defined a
"publication" broadly as distributing copies to the public. Therefore, your Web
page is a publication, but, an e-mail message to your friend is not. Senators and
Congressional representatives stress that these bills are only the "starting
point" and demand further discussion. So you may want to send your greetings the old
fashioned way -- cards delivered by your neighborhood letter carrier.
For more information about the Internet and copyright laws, see our Web page at
www.si.umich.edu/iota. I'm Joan Silvi for Internet On The Air.
