Copyright is always a sensitive issue to all of us who create or distribute content online. It can apply to a blog post, video clip, audio clip, code, design or even a comment by you. So, what can or what should we actually claim to be copyright protected?

United States have a real act (not a law) known as DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) that is effective from Oct 1998. Most of the countries respect this act but some countries have their own version of copyright policy which is not quite similar. All of you probably know Switzerland still do not have any strict policy like U.S.. As a result, there are many websites who moved their web server to Switzerland to avoid the DMCA. Piratebay.org is one of them that i must mention.

There are many individuals and companies who had to fight DMCA in court including Google Inc. for YouTube.com. It makes me wonder, is the internet a place to share? Or, it is a place for money hungry and egotistical folks?

If a person spends lots of his time writing a book, singing a song, code a software, i strongly believe he deserves to get credit for it. Some people give away their hard work just for fun. That is how license like GPL/GNU was initiated. Some want to make their living by doing it, that’s okay too. DMCA should apply in these cases to its full extent. But, if a person makes an iFrame html script (need not to mention the content of iframe is from third party) OR if a person shot a video clip at a stadium and share it over the internet with millions claims his or her copyright when someone uses their so called “hard work” is completely obnoxious.

Since i write code, design layouts and develop websites i have been facing this type of situations all the time. At the end of the day i really want to say to those people,

“Be realistic, this is twenty first century. Collaboration and sharing information is the new era of digital age. You do not have to run around and claim every little thing to be yours. Whatever you are claiming to be yours might not be actually yours. Think about it, think twice.”

P.S. By the way, i hope you did not get the wrong idea of me supporting piracy. However, keep in mind why and for whom DMCA was passed in the first place.