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Going Further
Now that you have become adept at finding things on the
Web, you should be aware of the important question of ownership
and copyright: what things on the Web may be freely downloaded
and what things may not be, at least not without restrictions?
For Web users in the K-12 environment this is of double
importance: not only should you be aware of personal legal
liabilities, you also are generally influencing the attitudes
of students toward these issues, which may have much larger
implications than your personal legal exposure.
Copyright Law
The question of what you may legitimately download can
be a very sticky one. In some cases it it simple: clearly
trademarked commercial logos (e.g., the Golden Arches) are
likely to be protected by trademark law and an army of corporate
lawyers. At the other extreme are tutorials like the one
you are using now, for which the authors have given explicit
permission for you to use it as you would like (subject
to some broad restrictions).
Of course, even in the above "clear-cut" situations things
may still be murky. For example, someone may give you permission
to copy something from their page when they do not have
the authority to do so. If they insert someone's corporate
logo on their page and then give you permission to copy
it, they may have violated copyright or trademark law in
placing the image there to begin with. This example illustrates
two important principles:
- Just because something appears
on the Internet does not mean that it is legal for you
to copy it.
- The law generally holds
that it is YOUR responsibility to determine the legality
of copying something, irrespective of whether the source
from which you copy it has broken the law or not.
A related point to bear in mind is that when, as in the
case of the Tutorial, someone gives you permission to use
their material, this permission does not extend to material
that may be accessed by a link from the original material.
The question of how material accessed in an external link
may be used clearly must be put to ITS owner.
Notice carefully the distinction: you may usually insert
a link to someone else's Web material in your pages
without restriction; the issue of ownership becomes important
only when you attempt to download material (text, images,
movies, . . .) from other Web sites and incorporate it directly
into your Web material.
Fair Use
Although copyright law protects those who create the work,
even a protected work can be "used" under certain circumstances.
This circumstance is known as "fair use" and according to
the Copyright Law, copying work "for purposes such as criticism,
comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies
for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an
infringement of copyright."
There are restrictions for fair use, but the purpose of
this section isn't to dispense legal advice. We merely want
to make you aware that there are some important legal considerations
when using material from the Web.
More Information
Here are some links to more extensive discussions of copyright,
fair use and trademark law:
You are well advised to look at this material if you intend
to download and use significant amounts of material from
the Web.
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