BizAims

Internet is a place where all information from the World Wide Web is collected by users of different ages. Almost everyone in the contemporary world uses the internet for a variety of purposes. For example, students look for information in order to write projects. Experts in certain fields perform market research. Music and movie fans watch favorite clips, trailers, download video and audio files. Some people use the Internet simply to entertain themselves. If earlier the main source of inspiration were the books, then over the last ten years Internet has become a powerful tool which people rely on more and more. The main advantage of the Internet is that everyone can easily access it and find everything they want on any subject.

With certain information being very valuable among internet users, the virtual world stumbled upon plagiarism, which is a continuously increasing problem. Quite often, Internet users are unaware if a story or another is protected by copyright laws. A lot of website owners consider that if certain information is provided for free than it can be easily copied and posted on personal website. But this is definitely a wrong idea. You don't copy books and say that you're their author, because each book has its author and thus it is his or her intellectual property. The intellectual property is protected by the copyright law. This is pretty much the same about content posted on the Internet, meaning that copying someone else's content is considered illegal offense.

The Idea of Internet Copyright Law

The Internet has its own copyright laws that should be respected. They forbid Internet users to copy the content that was written by another person. It is worth mentioning that copyright laws on the Internet are applied to every type of information posted online, ranging from, e-mails, poems, stories and photographs to audio and video files. Undoubtedly everyone who has access to the Internet should know about the copyright laws that are there to protect the intellectual property of the author. Prior to learning the laws, it is important to be aware of what copyright really is. One of the explanations of the copyright law was provided in the book entitled "The Copyright Handbook", which was written by Stephen Fishman. The book gives the following definition of the copyright: "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."

In case one copies someone else's work for commercial purpose, this illegal act is considered to be an offense under copyright law. Copyright laws protect only the original works of a person. An original message in an e-mail letter is considered to be protected by the copyright law as well, thus the copyright laws prohibit a person receiving an e-mail letter to forward it. When you're surfing through the Internet it is important to know that its copyright laws focus on the fact that an original work must not be copied anywhere on the other website by any person. One has no right to copy from the Internet word by word the work of another individual. In case a person looks forward to post a work of some else, they need to ask for permission from the owner of the website, where the original story is posted, or get authorization from the author of the work. It is worth mentioning that the violation of copyright law on the Internet is a violation of the Civil law. Thus, if a person is spotted in plagiarizing, he or she can face serious penalization.

Copyright Law Limitations

Nevertheless, the copyright law has its limitations that are known as "fair use", which gives a person the possibility to use information provided on the Internet, with specific constraints. Despite the fact that copying someone's work is considered to be illegal, under the principles of fair use, an individual is allowed to take ideas as well as other things that come under the public domain, including facts, slogans, short phrases, names and words.

For example, when an individual takes certain material from a website for education or work, then the information he or she takes comes under the domain of fair use. However, if someone takes the work of another person and publishes it as if the work belongs to him or her, then it is considered a violation of the copyright law. There are cases when a work will not be considered plagiarized, and that is in case it is restructured and includes only some ideas of the original work. It will also not be considered plagiarized in case it has a different target audience.
Due to the fact that a lot of people do not know what plagiarism in fact is, they might be unaware that such illegal activity can be caught. Today technology suffered enormous changes and reached such a level that a number of specific techniques are able to identify material that has been plagiarized. Thus you should be aware that copied material will be spotted.

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