Copyright and the Web

Understanding Copyright—Digital Projects

The first step to understanding your how to use copyright for digital projects is having a strong foundation for understanding what a copyright is.  I did some research on this and really liked the articles that first gave a background on what copyright is, how long it lasts and what plagiarism is before they went into your responsibilities for dealing with this through Internet sources. 

In the links below you will see that they go into in-depth information on copyright information.  I went to Universities that have policies for students because they had a clear layout of what copyright is and what it means for the Internet.

As a student, it is good to know what is protected on the Internet and guidelines for what you can and can’t do.  I believe that people can believe that everything that they see on the Internet so you have to be careful with where your sources come from.  In the age of fake news, it is a must to check our sources and give credit for it.  Not going through the correct channels or crediting the proper sources, makes you look unprofessional and can cost people significant amounts of money.  To avoid criticism and potential fines, you need to protect yourself using creditable sources and follow the proper protocol when downloading music, television or movies.

I liked how the resources mention that many aspects of the Internet and copyright are still not clearly defined.  It made me realize that there are rules that govern use but there is still some flexibility or grey areas that are still being worked out.  As more and more people are looking to the courts for help, we are seeing that laws and rules are being created and a more set of defined rules are being established.

Hot Links:
Copyright for Students:
https://library.osu.edu/documents/copyright/student-copyright-guide.pdf

Copyright for Digital Media Assignments: https://researchguides.library.wisc.edu/copyrightfordigitalmedia

Copyright and the Internet:
https://mason.gmu.edu/~montecin/copyright-internet.htm

MUSEUMS

Museums are full of information and they are making sure to credit the information about the item and give rich details about it.  Here are a few things that I learned about citing from looking around on the Internet:

•  Full detailed information is often listed with the portrait.  Along with the artist, the person who sat for the portrait and data source.  Her is an example of Pocahontas that illustrates how a portrait is cited by the National Portrait Gallery: https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.65.61?destination=portraits
• Photos often have the name of the person in the photo, artist, the location and where the artifact is housed
• Exhibits are tagged with information regarding the specimen including date, origin, location, exhibit name and location.  https://naturalhistory.si.edu/exhibits/bone-hall

I think that we often take these for granted as we stroll by.  It isn’t until we are forced to stop and look around that we see the time and effort that it takes to showcase this history and what it means.

Here is a listing of the sites that I explored:

• National Portrait Gallery: https://npg.si.edu/visit
• National Museum of Women’s History: https://www.womenshistory.org/
• National Museum of National History: https://naturalhistory.si.edu/panoramas/#
• Google Art Project: https://artsandculture.google.com/