If you've ever used the Internet for more than checking your email, chances are that you've watched clips uploaded to YouTube. You've probably linked a webpage to Facebook that you found interesting, amusing, or horrifying. Maybe all three at the same time. At a time when cultural works are becoming globally accessible, they're also becoming globally controversial.
If you go back twenty or thirty years, copyright was very much a niche subject of interest, and the domain of some very specialised lawyers. Increasingly, copyright is a commonly-known and widely-used word, not to mention an emotionally charged one. Battle-lines are drawn, with some commentators saying that we need stronger copyright laws with stricter penalties for those that infringe those right. We have others who say that copyright should not, and cannot, exist. Between those two extremes are varying degrees of opinion, analysis and, occasionally, misinformation.
The purpose of this blog, and the writings, rants and musings that it contains, is to draw attention issues surrounding the use of content online, be it file-sharing, disputes over the 'hot-linking' of newspaper articles, or issues of privacy and copyright. It will include explanations of on-going legislative initiatives, analysis of policy documents by EU and international organisations, and considerations of ways in which copyright might be changed in order to make it more suited to the digital environment. And above all, the purpose is to do this in a way that avoids highly technical legal language, so as to make it as accessible to the general public as possible .
After all, copyright online is an issue which has the potential to affect just about everyone who uses the Internet. With that in mind, it's important that everyone understands just how it works.
