Intellectual Property:
Intellectual property rights (IPRs) refer to a set of proprietary rights enforceable by law or doctrine, that define possession of both physical and cognitive expressions of creativity. Any proprietary rights can be can be transferred to another person or organisation, ether by transferring ownership in exchange for something of value or by licence, where possession not ownership is transferred. Copyright (see below) is one of these right
It is the responsibility of the user of copyrighted materials to comply with the law. However it is the responsibility of the owner of these rights (not necessarily the original author of the work) as opposed to the state (like Data Protection) to assert those right and check for infringement.
Property Rights:
Copyrights and intellectual property rights should apply to all intellectual works irrespective of their format. However, the peculiarities of electronic information are not fully accounted for within current laws.
Copyright:
The principles of copyright are embodied with the terms of the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. The enactment is designed to protect original works of authorship from commercial damage by granting exclusive property rights to the owner of such a work.
Copyright is an automatic right under United Kingdom law that assigns to the owner (who is not necessarily author) of a work exclusive rights to reproduce and publish that work,
Copyright applies from the date when the physical embodiment of an original asset (idea or concept) came it to existence (No notice is necessary to obtain protection) and has a period of duration amounting to 70 years past the end of the calendar month in which the author or last surviving joint author dies.
Protection:An idea or concept itself cannot be protected, only the recorded consequences of that concept are (its expression and structure) protectable. Copyrights do not apply to titles, short phrases, names, slogans, mere listing of ingredients, or works consisting entirely of unoriginal information.
Conventions:
Complete international copyright protection does not exists, until such time, works are subject to the laws of individual nations in which the works was created.
The restricted geographically of laws means that information made available globally through a network may not have the same protections in other places, although most nations have signed international treaties on intellectual property, such as the Berne copyright convention, which almost all major nations have signed, some points of law still differ from country to country.
Restricted Actions:
The primary infringements as established in the CDPA s16(1) are as follows where“The owner of the copyright in a work has... the exclusive right to do the following acts in the United Kingdom -
(a) to copy the work (see section 17);
(b) to issue copies of the work to the public (see section 18);
(c) to perform, show or play the work in public (see section 19);
(d) to broadcast the work or include it in a cable programme service (see section 20);
(e) to make an adaptation of the work or do any of the above in relation to an adaptation (see section 21);
The secondary infringements apply to an “infringing copy?as established in the CDPA the action that constitute creation of an infringing copy are:[1] Importing an infringing copy (s22);[2] Possessing or dealing with infringing copy (s23); [3] Permitting the use of premises for infringing performances (s25);[4] Providing the apparatus for an infringing performance(s26);
An “infringing copy?is defined in s27 of th CDPA as “An article is an infringing copy if its making constituted an infringement of the copyright in the work in question?br />
The terms of the CDPA s17(2) defines copying as meaning “reproducing the work in any material form? Any computerised operation on a work involves copying it.
An infringement of these rights, that effectively amount to unauthorised reproduction or publication of another work regardless of wither the infringing party is aware of any such act, the scope of the term “reproduction?includes distribution (over a network) electronically, as well as manually created copies.
Moral Rights:
The terms of the DCPA identifies the following elements attributable to the rights of the author that subsist alongside copyright. These are as follows:[1] Paternity right: The right to be identified as the author (see CDPA s77).
[2] The Integrity right: The right to object to the derogatory treatment of a work (see CDPA s80)
[3] False attribution: The right not to suffer false attribution of a work. This applies until the end of the year in which 20 years have elapsed after death of the author (see CDPA s84).
[4] Privacy of photographs: The right of the commissioner of photographs not to have copies issued to the public (see CDPA s85).
Originality:
Copyright protects the authors?of original works. There is no definition of “originality?in the CDPA, however article 1(3) of the EU Software Directive defines “originality?to mean “the author’s own intellection creation?this is not part of the CDPA but it is a reasonable working definition.
Ownership of Copyright:The terms of the CDPA s11(1) identify “The author of a work is the first owner of any copyright in it?However this is subject to provisions, one of which is that the copyright is normally assigned to the party who commissioned the work, when produced within the scope of direct or indirect employment.
As part of a contractual agreements, with the exception of the authors?moral rights, all other rights to control the ways in which their work may be used, can be transferred to the other party, unless provisions to the contrary are written into the contract of employment.
Lawful Use of Materials:
Paraphrases, making partial copies or copying the language used to express the common knowledge or the arrangement of a work are all considered infringement of copyright.
However for copyright purpose, the following are not considered infringement of copyright:[1] Copying work in the public domain, such as the true statement or common knowledge from someone else's work is allowed,
[2] Talking about an idea or concept from someone else's work isn't considered copying for copyright purposes. (though this may violate rights under the patent laws).
Fair Use of Materials:
As described above, there are exceptions that allow copying of copyrighted works of others because they are not considered copying.
However, the fair use doctrine (fair dealing in Canada and some other nations) allows lawful reproduction of others' work without permission in areas where it is felt that some more important social principles would be violated otherwise. This amounts to the ability to make some limited use of the work in doing the following. You can without permission be:[1] Commenting on a copyrighted work, quoting excerpts to make a point;
[2] Teaching or using it the course of teaching, using examples from a work;
[3] Researching a copyrighted work; The interpretations of the fair use doctrine is usually a short excerpt no more that 2%, and is not a licence to copy if you don’t gain financially.
Plagiarism:
Plagiarism is the reverse side of the copyright coin. It is the taking of the ideas of another as if they are one’s own. Ideas (as opposed to their physical embodiment) are specifically not protected by the CDPA, (see 3.3 above) but obvious plagiarism can still lead to bad publicity at the very least, or claims of fraud if commercially exploited
Work Created on a Network:The principles of copyright laws were not written with electronic files in mind. The network does not provide information, it routes or relays information. The operator of the network (as opposed to the site owner) shall not be liable for ensuring that there is not any material, data or information on the Web site which is illegal or unlawful, obscene, defamatory or otherwise infringes any third party rights whatsoever, but must take action if brought to his attention.
Electronic Transmission:
CDPA s24(2) states that transmitting a work “by means of a telecommunications system...,, knowing or having reason to believe that infringing copies of the work will be made by means of the reception of the transmission in the United Kingdom or elsewhere.?is an infringement of the rights of the copyright owner. As the party responsible for making the work available through the Web the web designer and his employer are liable as a result, therefore adequate insurance should be provided to prevent this situation
Incidental copying:
The terms of the CDPA s17(2) states“Copying in relation to any description of work includes the making of copies which are transient or are incidental to some other use of the work.?br />
Internet Service Providers:
The ISP is a carrier and the role of information services should be separated in the law, with responsibility for copyright protections going to the information services. The "original work" is not created within a network. The law applies in sometimes surprising ways, and users should think about copyrights before distributing or reproducing work created by another person.
Web Design:
It is the responsibility of the content provider to secure copyright and or consent to use any materials in the design of the website and ensure the intellectual property rights of some third party are not infringed.
The client is normally the provider of content and the responsibility is theirs. However, the designer is responsible for acquiring the right to use what ever content he provides from his own resources.
The client in its design contract will normally prevent the designer creating a site for anyone else which resembles the one created for the client, to ensure a unique look and feel for its own online presence.
Agreements:
The contractual agreements of a contract between the designer of the website and the client in respect to intellectual property rights should include provisions which enable the designer to retain copyright in the underlying computer code and scripts, to enable the designer to legally re-use the same code and scripts in future design projects.
Agreement will need a suitable level of clarity and to state in no incertain terms the parties and the specifications for the work to be completed, and the extent of any permitted sub-contracting.
It will also need to spell out where the Intellectual Property Rights in the various elements of the design of the site are to be owned. The terms and conditions of a contract can transfer or waive any intellectual property: rights.
Ownership:Any competent client will complete background checks in respect to who owns intellectual property rights to the work complected at their request. The client needs assurance that the work is the property of the designer, not some third party and that they are receiving original work.
Many standard tools and a repertoire of technical solutions may be utilised by the designers, ownership of which may unclear. Sites built using such combinations software tools that might not even belong to them are potentially infringing upon the rights of theses unknown parties.
The reuse of photographs from a company brochure may also constitute an infringement because these are not necessarily the copyright of the company, where in this case a licence may be needed from the photographer.
Liability:
Publication on the internet constitutes and carries similar consequences as publication in any other medium.
The transnational availability of electronic information has the primary effect of making available (publishing) to the world at large, because people may rely on it and potentially suffer as a result, the secondary effect is that of increasing the number people whom suffer as a result and increasing the publishers exposures to legal action by a greater number of readers.
Liability in hyperlinks:
A peculiarity of the internet is that you may be a publisher for copyright breach or defamation purposes merely by providing a link to the copyright owners own pages - i.e. what the web surfer sees is provided by the real owner, but if done as if provided by the infringer, a breach has been committed.
The nature of the hyper text links is also important, whether it's a link to a home page or a link to the middle of a site. It's often the home page of a site that has advertisers on it, so if somebody is linking into the middle of a third-party Web site and not going through the parts that are important for revenue, that might make a difference.'
?I am the website administrator of the The Wandle Industrial Museum (http://www.wandle.org). Established in 1983 by local people determined to ensure that the history of the valley was no longer neglected but enhanced for the benefit of the community.