Implications to the World Wide Web

Implications for the World Wide Web

A conceptual description of the Internet can provide a context for the discussion on the World Wide Web, hereafter referred to as WWW. The Internet, often called the Information Superhighway, is a global system of interconnected computer networks. This system supports many communication applications such as e-mail, Usegroups, Telnet for remote access, and FTP or file transfer protocol. The Internet and WWW are very closely woven together. December and Randall (1995) assert that the WWW is "a convergence of computational concepts for presenting and linking information dispersed across the Internet in an accessible way" (p. 7).

Origins of the World Wide Web

The WWW was developed in Switzerland at the Conseil European pour la Recherche Nucleaire (CERN) in March 1989 as a means to facilitate the timely dissemination of research by international physicists. The premise behind the WWW was to provide an interface with which to retrieve and view hypertext documents and make these documents universally accessible (Zeltzer, 1995). This accessibility is based on the principle of universal readership which asserts that "if information is available, then any (authorized) person should be able to access it from anywhere in the world" (Levy in Zeltser, 1995, p. 1).

Initially, the WWW was incapable of displaying graphics; the development of graphical browsers such as Mosaic and Netscape which support multimedia have revolutionized the WWW. Although academic roots underpin the workings of the WWW, it has grown to become a widespread phenomenon for the dissemination of personal, commercial, organizational, and governmental information. This information is made accessible via hyperlinks between WWW hypertext documents which now contain integrated textual, graphical, and multimedia works.

Digital Transmission

Digital transmission involves sending documents across the WWW for the purposes of browsing and downloading. Browsing, or surfing the Net, involves scanning the WWW for websites; downloading is the process of transferring files or web documents from a remote computer to the user’s floppy or hard disk drive for storage (Crumlish, 1995). These acts of digital transmission have caused copyright concerns.

The United States Green Paper, which proposes amendments to the American Copyright Act of 1976, addresses the applicability of copyright law to digital transmission. Shade (1995) discusses the concepts of copyright law that are considered in the Green Paper: Right to browse; Right of digital transmission; Abolition of "first sale"; and Abolition of fair use. The first concept, Right to browse, alludes to the right of browsing or surfing the WWW. It is suggested by the Green Paper that the Right to browse could constitute infringement of copyright as the transmission of websites serve to reproduce the work of the creator. The second concept, Right of digital transmission, proposes that the transmission of a work is causing a reproduction of the work to occur, thereby infringing upon copyright. However, this does not take into consideration factors such as fair dealing in education and libraries. Abolition of "first sale", the third concept, suggests that the redistribution of digital works would be an infringement of copyright. Lastly, the Abolition of fair use is implied, and thus any copying of works, even for private non-commercial purposes, would be seen as an infringement of copyright.

Although the Green Paper attempts to address the effects of digital transmission on copyright, it is evident that the proposed amendments are limiting and fly in the face of the concept of universal readership. It is interpreted that any browsing or use of works on the WWW would be construed as copyright infringement under the proposed amendments of current legislation.

Derivative Works

Derivative works are essentially new works that are created by building upon existing works. The creation of new works in a virtual environment is facilitated by the use of cut, copy, and paste applications in web browsers, graphics software, and word processing programs. Shade (1995) addresses the notion of digital plasticity or the ease with which digital works can be reproduced and manipulated. This malleability could be potentially advantageous in the dissemination of information, but it is causing problems with respect to copyright and ownership of derivative works. Barlow (1993) offers an alternate perspective to the metamorphic quality of digital information. Barlow discusses the concept of digital information as an evolving process that has no final fixed form, similar to oral traditions. Through this perspective, digital works would be no more protected by copyright than other unfixed works. Thus, the copyright of derivative works would not become an issue.

Current Canadian copyright law (Harris, 1995) stipulates that digital works must meet the same criteria for copyright protection, thus, originality, fixation, and nationality of creator and publication are due considerations. Fixation is a problematic criterion, as online works are protected only when printed or saved to disk. In the United States, interactive works are considered to meet the criterion of fixation; Canada is expected to adopt this legislation in the near future.

According to the copyright law, permission is required from the creator to adapt or manipulate digital works; where permission is granted, the moral rights of the creator and the integrity of the work must be respected. With digital works it is perhaps easier to infringe on moral rights than through other forms of works due to the ease of modification. The moral rights of a creator are infringed if the work is altered in such a way it is mutilated, distorted, or used in association with a product, service, or institution that would cause the dishonour of the reputation of the creator. This is stipulated in section 28.2 (1) of the Canadian Copyright Act.

Digital works can be altered through morphing, which is the manipulation of images, and through sampling, which involves borrowing bits and pieces from different web sites (Harris, 1995). When works of another creator are altered, even slightly, and then uploaded back to the to the WWW, the rights of the creator are infringed. There is some debate as to who is the owner of these derivative works, since they are built from existing works on the WWW. In addition, digital reproduction is precise and identical in quality, thus creating the dilemma of original versus copy. Because digital duplicates are exact, often the original cannot be differentiated from the copy. The combination of exact duplication with the ability to morph and sample can create unwanted implications on the WWW.