Copyright on the 'Net. Copyright issues involve both downloading and uploading information. Internet materials are generally covered by existing copyright laws and entertainment, educational, and commercial agencies are working to clarify and even tighten copyright as it pertains to the Internet. Text, graphics, and sound are all covered. Downloading items for forwarding, integrating into presentations, and for incorporating into hard copy products involves the necessity for copyright awareness.
Many postings ask that materials be downloaded in their entirety and attribution given.
Care should be taken in displaying student materials posted on school homepages. Students may hold inherent copyright on their work, and permission should be granted before their work is disseminated. The Internet is awash in information, a lot of it with varying degrees of copyright protection. Copyrighted works on the Net include news stories, software, novels, screenplays, graphics, pictures, Usenet messages and even email. In fact, the frightening reality is that almost everything on the Net is protected by copyright law.