Copyright Laws on the Internet

Internet has become a medium to gather information from the world wide web, by people of all age groups. It is used to find information by students for educational purposes (like writing projects, notes, etc), by professionals for market research, by music lovers to listen to or download music and by people who access the web casually. Earlier, books were the main source to gain information, however in recent times, people are relying more on the Internet for it. This major shift is seen because Internet is quick and whatever information one wants is just a click away.

Plagiarism has become common, with increasing popularity of the Internet. People who use the Internet, often do not know, if it is protected by copyright laws. They think that just because the information is available for free, it can be copied. However, this is not true. We are aware of the fact that every book has a copyright, which is owned by the writer of the book, and copying any content from it is an illegal offense. In the same way, material published on the Internet has certain copyright laws, which prohibit the readers or whoever access the net, from plagiarizing the content. Copyright laws apply to stories, poems, e-mail, articles, images, music, videos, in short anything that appears on the web, even though there is no appropriate copyright signature on that particular web page.

Every person who uses the Internet should be aware of the copyright laws that safeguard the material found on the Internet. Before we know the laws, it is important to understand what is copyright. Stephen Fishman in his book, 'The Copyright Handbook' defines copyright as a legal device that provides the creator of a work of art or literature, or a work that conveys information or ideas, the right to control how the work is used. If any work is plagiarized for commercial gain, it is considered to be an offense under copyright laws.

Only original work by an individual can be protected under copyright laws. Even an e-mail that one receives, is protected under copyright laws and the individual does not have the right to forward it.

Copyright laws on the Internet emphasize that a work of an individual, published on the web, should not be replicated anywhere else by another individual. An original material from the Internet cannot be taken and reproduced word to word. If one wants to copy any material from a site, it is necessary to seek permission of the site owner or the author. If one is copying directly from a person's work, it is necessary to acknowledge that fact. Plagiarizing any material on the Internet comes under Civil law and a person can be penalized heavily.

However, there are some limitations even to copyright laws which is known as fair use. Fair use allows a person to use information, available on the Internet, with some restrictions. Under the criteria of fair use, although it is illegal to copy, one can take ideas and also things that come under the public domain like facts, slogans, short phrases, names and words. When a person takes material from the Internet for education or work, it comes under the domain of fair use. But, if someone uses the material for publishing it with his name as the author, it is illegal. A new work will not be considered as plagiarized, if it is restructured by only taking the ideas and also when the target audience is different from that of the original work.

As people are unaware of copyright laws, they are also ignorant of the fact that plagiarism can be caught. Technology has advanced to such a great extent that it has introduced variety of techniques to get hold of plagiarized material, and hence people should not think that no one will know if they plagiarize anything from the Internet.

Every original work is the outcome of efforts taken by the author. We must remember that merely copying from others work is not only illegal, but a way of showing disrespect for that person.