After completing the website project I decided to take a look at some legal and ethical issues within the social media and web design and discuss these issues.
Copyright: The term copyright refers to a legal concept given by most governments giving the creator of an original piece of work exclusive rights to it. It also gives the copyright holder the right to be credited for their work and acts as a form of trademark. The copyright act of 1976 allows these exclusive rights to the copyright holder whether the original item is a literary piece, a musical piece, a dramatic piece, a pantomime, a choreographed piece, a pictorial/graphic piece of work, a sculptural piece, motion picture, audiovisual or sound recordings, architectural pieces, software programmes and even the written words on a website. Copyright is automatically created on original works but it is always a better idea to file a copyright to establish a public record of it in case an infringement suit is pursued. An example of an artist who was affected by the legal concept of copyright is Shepard Fairey. He received a sentence of two years probation and a $25,000 fine in the criminal contempt case involving his "Hope" poster of Barack Obama. Fairey did actually admit to destroying documents and submitting false images in his legal battle with the press regarding the use of a 2006 photo of Obama as inspiration for one of his photos.
Intellectual Property Rights: Intellectual property rights is a legal concept which refers to creations of the mind where exclusive rights have been recognised. The owners of these original works are allowed exclusive rights in many areas such as musical, literary, artistic works, discoveries and inventions, words, phrases and designs. Common types of intellectual property rights include things such as copyright, trade secrets, patents, trademarks, trade dress and industrial design rights. These rights are protected by copyright for a minimum period of fifty years after the death of the owner.
Permissions: Although the copyright cases require a fact based, case by case analysis to determine whether the third party requires permission for copyright, often it is hard to determine that any other designers, artists or musicians are aware of the legal perimeters. The guidelines apply whether the source material is old or recent aslong as it is copyright. They also apply whether the material is in print or electronic form however certain things should be specifically secured for permission :
- a single quotation from a book, more than 300 words.
- a single quotation from a newspaper, more than 50 words.
- photographs or artworks.
- charts, tables, graphs and other representations.
- material which includes lyrics, poems or the titles of songs.
- any computer representations.
Libel and sensitivity to groups of society: The publication of any libellous or slanderous statements about a person or company that can be proven to be published with the intentions of harming reputations is considered to be defamation. Online defamation is the publication of these statements made on blogs, forums, websites and social network sites. Many people believe that they are free to say and do what they like on the internet, however defamation laws and regulations stand for online defamation as they do in any form of media.
Decency: The communications decency act of 1966 was first notable in the USA. It was made to regulate pornographic material on the internet. The act affected the internet in two ways, the first was to attempt to regulate both indecency and obscenity in cyberspace and secondly to say that operators of Internet services are not to be construed as publishers and therefore not liable for the words of third parties who use their services. It is important to protect children who have access to the internet from seeing anything rude or explicit.
Safeguarding: There are various risks for children who easily have access to the internet such as:
- inappropriate contact from people who may wish to abuse, exploit or bully them.
- inappropriate conduct, they may accidentally become targets to cyberbullying.
- inappropriate content, they may be able to access sexually explicit, racist, violent or harmful material.
- accidentally enabling viruses.
There are various different ways to safeguard children that should always be considered before they are allowed access to the internet such as:
- make children aware that online contacts may not be who they seem.
- children must keep personal information private.
- ensure they use a family email when filling in forms.
- make sure children report concerns about conversations.
- use parental control settings on browsers, search engines and internet packages.
- block pop ups and spam emails.
- always sit with a younger child when they are online.
- ensure that children don't illegally copyright any content.
- set limits on when they can use the computer and for how long.
