Webupon

The first thing you need to do is make simple analogies.

Online Shopping

Way back in the 1800s, people could buy things via a catalogue. They’d see what they wanted, write a letter put their cash in an envelope, (or buy a “money order”) and mail it off. Eventually the purchase would come in the mail.

The very same principles that applied in the 1800s via ‘mail order’ apply in the 2000s to “on line”.

E-mail

If I wrote to you, (let’s suppose it was a nasty letter), and you showed it to all your friends and your lawyer, even went so far as to post it in the local newspaper, exactly where can I find legal grounds to sue you?

I wrote it.
I sent it to you.
You own it.
You can burn it.
You can hang it up on the wall.
It is yours.

When someone sent the artist, Pablo Picasso a check for “lessons” and he returned it with a drawing on the back, that checkwriter could sell that drawing.

That the drawing was Picasso’s was not the issue, no “copyright” or “copywrong”, it was Picasso’s drawing.

That it was sent to the check writer meant it belonged to the check writer.

Hence, in the example of email, I can not complain if you take my email and send it to your local paper, as long as you say; “This was written by a. fool.”

Many times people who own message boards claim they own the ‘property’ in the posts. As long as you recognise that you have copied this post from a Message Board; as long as it is a Public Message Board, (meaning any member of the Public can log on and see the posts), the question of ‘privacy’ becomes moot.

Further, one may make the same post to ten message boards. For example if one were dealing with a particular issue and you wrote your opinion, then copied and pasted it to ten message boards, would they all be left to sue each other for the post you made?

Think of it. Think of all the “LOLs” you posted. Who owns the “LOLs”?

If someone were to take your post, however, slap their name on it and repost it, then we are talking plagiarism. Plain old plagiarism, going back hundreds of years. Nothing new about plagiarism.

Recently, there has been this uproar about photographs of celebrities. One can understand the photographer who took the picture wishing to be credited with the picture. But all those photos in all those magazines which fill the shelves, what is the legal position?

If someone snaps a celebrity walking out of a movie theater and puts it into a magazine, and you take that photo and put it on your computer, or post it as your avatar, what law have you broken?

You are not saying you took the photo. You are not saying that it is a photo of you.   Just as people who cut photos from magazines and hang them in their rooms have never been charged with an offense, why should you be?

Question of Property

Then there is the question of ownership of a protocol. Where it is open source there is no problem, just as long as you remember that you have no more right to it than the guy you sell it to, and he has no more ownership over it than you do, it’s all fine.

If you are hired by a company to create a protocol and are paid for creation of that protocol, you may very well have sold your copyright, just as one who sells an article to a magazine may have sold their copyright unless the contract stipulates otherwise.

The fact is is a protocol, application, operating system, whatever; it is the same law that applies if you wrote a book.  If you have, like so many hungry bellies, sold it lock stock and barrel, (to coin a phrase) then you’re out of luck.  If you have retained the rights to your intellectual property, then you’re in luck.  But it is no new law.

Anytime you are threatened by a lawsuit, (we are not talking criminal acts here) because you used a photo of a celebrity as an avatar, or copied something from Wiki to use as an “authority” (as long as you give the credit) or downloaded something, (as long as it isn’t specifically protected) before you panic, use common sense.