Internet copyright laws function much like those for books, music and art. Unless a notification is posted to grant certain rights to online viewers, all rights to the work belong to the author. However, this was not always the case in the online world. The Berne Copyright Convention was established in April 1989 to protect intellectual property on the web. This is a uniform set of laws followed by the global online world. This law applies in the absence of a posted copyright notice, as well.- Copyright laws are a form of protection put in place by the United States government. They're designed to cover all forms of authorship, some of which include drama, literary, music, art, digital materials and design. Anything which appears on the internet is considered published, and so falls under these property guidelines. There are items online available for public use, however these sites are cleared marked. Typically, items available for public use are marked as property of the "public domain."
Violations of Internet copyright laws can be prosecuted in a civil court, as this is considered civil law. A person can be sued for stealing the works of another. This type of violation of intellectual property is considered plagiarism. It involves passing off someone else's ideas as her own, and not giving credit to the source. Plagiarism includes copying material from emails, websites or reproducing graphics. However, if permission is requested from the author of a work and it is granted, no violation has occurred.- As a result of the criminal activities now carried out on the Internet, the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) was put into place as a reporting agency where online violations are investigated and referred to the appropriate authorities. The IC3 is made up of a partnership between the National White Collar Crime Center, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Justice Assistance. In addition to copyright law violations, the agency receives information on computer hacking, economic espionage, international money laundering, identity theft and online extortion.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 was put in place as a way to enforce internet copyright laws, and provide a certain amount of protection to Internet service providers, as well. Plagiarism occurrences should be reported to the perpetrator's online service provider, and the major search engines. Any sites receiving compensation through advertisements may also be in violation of their advertiser's rules against plagiarism, so contacting these advertisers will also work towards shutting down the site, and reestablishing ownership of your material.
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