Presenting Mathematical Concepts on the World Wide Web
Next: Outline of This Session.

As I've already stated, I am not a lawyer!

My curiosity about copyright was piqued in the mid-1970s when two things happened:

1. I completed my Master's degree, and the University sent me a form to complete to register the copyright on my thesis with the US Copyright Office. I wondered what it meant to suddenly find myself the owner of "intellectual" property.
2. In my "copious spare time" right after finishing that degree, I read a number of Victorian novels and biographies, in particular those of Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens. The biographies of those authors contained discussions of all the things they had to do to protect their rights to their own work (e.g., pubishing a book and staging a play the same day that the last installement of a serialized story was published so they would have the rights, in England at least, to those derivative works as well as to the original; and their efforts on behalf of establishing international copyright conventions), and I was curious about where all this had gone in the intervening hundred-some years.

So I read up a bit on the copyright laws then in force, before moving on to other interests.

Then, in the mid-1990s, as I became increasingly involved with the production and distribution of materials via the World Wide Web, I found the issue of intellectual property ownership coming up repeatedly in my own work and that of my colleagues. So I did some more research, talked with some of the folks who dealt with copyright issues at my employers (International Thomson Publishing and then the University of Minnesota), and developed this presentation.

I will tell you this about my biases: I have become a strong believer in Intellectual Property Rights. Some people may abuse the concept of Intellectual Property Rights, either deliberately or through misunderstanding, but that doesn't mean the system we have now is bad. It may not be perfect but, once you come to understand it, I hope you will agree with my belief that it is far better than not having it.

Finally, do not let Intellectual Property concerns discourage you from the thought of using the work of others. Just follow the rules: either make sure your use falls under the "fair use" provisions (and make sure you understand that yourself, because there's lots of misinformation floating about on that issue), or seek the property owner's permission. When authors give you permission to use their work, announce it. This gives the author credit for their work, but it also lets others know this is someone who is willing to give such permission. Spreading the word this way about cooperative intellectual property owners is good for all of us!