World Wide Web Content

Websites are created using a variety of media. The content that is typically found on a website on the WWW includes literary works, photographic works, audio-visual works, and graphics. These works, once uploaded into cyberspace, are digital works which can be easily transmitted, reproduced, and manipulated.

Literary Works

Literary works encompass the broad base of textual works that can be authored including but not limited to news articles, fictional works, opinion pieces, and government documents. These works, traditionally found in print format, are now widespread on the WWW. This has resulted in copyright concern with respect to personal websites and electronic publishing.

Personal websites are commonplace on the WWW. These sites are created by users of all ages, and more often then not these users are unfamiliar with the terms of copyright law. Several copyright concerns exist for personal web creators. First of all, creators of websites can potentially infringe copyright by downloading and transmitting works to their websites from other websites, thereby sampling from the WWW. Under the Canadian Copyright Act, the downloading would infringe on the distribution rights of the creator, and the combining of texts of different web documents without proper referencing would constitute infringement of moral rights. Secondly, there is the concern with the scanning of copyrighted materials to post them on personal web pages as this too could infringe the rights of creators. With all the cause for concern, it is paramount that web users obtain permission from the copyright owners of works.

Electronic publishing is becoming widespread and is being used as a substitute and supplement to traditional print publishing. Self-publishing on the WWW is eliminating the need for editors and publishers. On the opposite end of the spectrum, printed works of authors are being republished electronically by publishers, without economic compensation being given to these creators. This is infringing upon the rights of creators to distribute works; in addition, these publishers are not giving consideration to economic rights. These infringements were broached by Di Brandt (1) from the University of Manitoba. Brandt expressed concern that major newspaper firms were buying articles for one time fees, and then redistributing them online. She asserted that the linear and spatial flow of the text was altered and thus these publishers infringed not only economic rights, but also moral rights.

Digital Multimedia

Exploration of the WWW reveals the abundant use of photographs, graphics, music clips, video clips, and animated works in addition to literary works. The integration of these works with literary or textual works creates the concept of multimedia. Similar to literary works that can be linked by hypertext, multimedia can be linked together by hypermedia. This in itself can create intellectual property concerns similar to the discussion on hypertext links. There are two areas of multimedia in particular that are causing copyright problems.

1. Graphics and Photographic works

Websites of museums, galleries, and photographers are posing copyright concerns as they contain images that can be easily downloaded and manipulated. The advent of the digital scanner has also contributed to the rising concerns of copyright as photographs and other such materials can be transformed into digital representations that can then be transmitted and manipulated. Graphics are digital images that are composed of pixels; such images include animation, cartoons, artwork, and photographs. While each of these areas are susceptible to reproduction and alteration, it is the use of photographic works on the WWW that is creating considerable havoc with regard to copyright infringement.

Photographic works are protected by copyright legislation, and the copyright holder of the photograph is the party that caused the photograph to be taken, usually the holder of the negative. Similar to textual works, photographic works have always been the victim of copyright infringement. Photographic technologies enable the reproduction of photos without the need of the negative, and photocopiers have long been used to reproduce images. However, even the most advanced photographic technologies and colour copiers are incapable of performing the feats of a scanner. Scanners have revolutionized the use of photographic works and have made photos a standard feature of websites. The principle feature that has enabled this is the digitization of the photograph which allows for images to be easily reproduced, distributed, and manipulated. Lundy (in Brockel, 1995) affirms that scanned images are in clear violation of the copyright holder’s rights unless prior permission is obtained to reproduce and distribute the image.

The use of photographic works on the WWW is widespread. A website is an ideal medium for photographers to advertise and promote their talents and skills; their photographic portfolio is easily uploaded or transmitted for viewing on the Web (Brockel, 1995). Just as easily, these pictures can be downloaded and subsequently altered, thereby infringing copyright of the creators. The use of photographic works on the WWW is not just limited to photographers. Personal websites often contain photographic works that have been scanned from the family photo album, and commercial sites often sell products via the WWW through the use of photographs.

Brockel (1995) discusses many emerging copyright issues with respect to photographic works. One such issue is the doctoring or altering of photographs of another creator. Sophisticated web browsers with a graphical interface make it possible to download or scan photographs and subsequently morph or doctor them. This infringes upon copyright in several ways: First of all, the image is downloaded or scanned which constitutes reproduction and thus copyright infringement; Secondly, the altering of the image infringes on the moral rights of the creator; Lastly, questions of authenticity of photographs arise as web users may be misled to believe that the doctored photo is the work of the original creator. This last aspect is of particular importance to the news photographs because their value lies in their accuracy. Brockel asserts that such altered photos lose credibility for the source, thereby affecting the moral rights of the creator.

2. Audio and Video Works

New technologies have propagated the use of musical and video works on the Internet. The use of such media on websites is deemed analogous to infringing the right of public performance as stipulated in the Canadian Copyright Act. There is increasing prevalence of big corporations such as Sony and Disney converting works from conventional formats into digital media. The creators of these works are typically not given economic compensation, however, it has been proposed that a pay-per-browse system will be implemented to monitor the use and control copyright of these works.

(1) Di Brandt, Marilyn MacCara, and Kathy Chute spoke as a guest panel on February 28, 1997, for the course on Intellectual Property and the New Technologies.