Alright, I’m a little pissy about intellectual property. Digital content is ridiculously easy to share. For people growing up with digital content, there’s lots of temptation to use readily available materials to be creative (animated music videos come to mind). Uh, yeah. That’s illegal.

So, I’m going to do a nice series on the topic. I expect something in the format of:

1. Copyright: protections for creative endeavors.
2. Trademarks: protecting identifiers (slogans, logos, and colors).
3. Patents: protects inventions and discoveries.
4. Fair use: staying out of trouble
5. Alternatives: public domain and creative commons.

Copyright protects artistic work including literary, dramatic/choreographed, musical, pictorial/graphic/sculptural, film/audiovisual, sound recordings, and architectural. It should be stated that copyright does not protect ideas, slogans, non-tangible works (like not recording a dance routine), and works that solely use public content (units of measurement, for example).

In the U.S., copyright is granted to every applicable thing created, but the copyright will need to be registered for legal considerations. Copyright extends 90 years from creation or 120 years from publication (whichever’s shorter). In terms of the owner of the copyright, that’s usually the creator(s). If you were to buy a painting, the artist probably did not also sell the copyrights to it.

So, what does a copyright protect? These are the exclusive rights that are granted to the copyright holder:

• To reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords.
• To prepare derivative works based upon the work.
• To distribute copies or phonorecords of the work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending.
• To publicly perform the work, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works.
• To publicly display the work, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work.

Yep. You cannot legally copy and distribute works (no P2P downloads), create works based on a work (like, oh, fanfiction), or have it readily available to the public (damn, no projecting WALL•E onto buildings). These exclusive rights are not dependent on who makes money, so that “no money = okay” excuse can get someone into trouble.

Alright then, how can there be so much blatant use of copyrighted materials? One option is that someone wrote the copyright holder and was granted permission (more effective for a lone musician than RCA).

But, in addition to the rights there’s also a list of limitations in copyright. These include: fair use, reproduction by archives and libraries, and creation of an accessible copy for a person with a disability that would not be able to access the material.

So, I’m writing this in part because I was inspired by  urocyon’s post “[L]ook who they are and how many of them are saying it” (routed by today’s “Recommended Reading” by FWD/Forward, a disability and feminism blog). This post relates the negative reactions and internalized messages that occur with people when they request help/accommodation.

Accommodation does not mean separate but equal.

I think this may be where some of the issues people have with accommodating people with disabilities. Accommodations are mentally construed as being treated separate from the mainstream. And everyone knows that “separate but equal” treatment is inherently unequal.

Accommodations are not the norm and are thereby viewed as .

This thought process is flawed. First, treating people the same isn’t necessarily treating them equally and fairly. Second, accommodations, for the most part, wouldn’t be very useful for an able-bodied person. That’s why these accommodations aren’t inherently in place; if most people don’t need something, no one must need it. Must be more of a perk, right?

A ramp isn’t necessary for people that are able to walk without assistive technologies, pain, or other difficulties. Extra time on exam has been shown to not affect scores of non-disabled test takers. A drop-down counter doesn’t help people of average height. Having subtitles on films doesn’t change the interpretation for someone who can hear clearly. Braille and audio transcriptions do not stop a sighted person from reading.

Having these accommodations in place doesn’t negatively affect  able-bodied persons. But, not having them does negatively affect the lives of people with disabilities. It isn’t separate but equal to have accommodations available; it’s bringing persons with disability into mainstream settings.

1. Include the alternative text tags in images. For users relying on a screen reader, it’s nice to know if an image is relevant and what it is. In HTML it’s as simple as adding a short line like so:
   <img src="image.gif" alt="Dalmatian">

2. Add subtitles to YouTube videos. Not only do hearing impaired viewers benefit, but also individuals that have difficulty with the included spoken language.
3. Design with the assumption the user will want to change the screen size. Enlarged text helps farsighted users, while being designed to also fit on small screens helps mobile phone accessors.
4. Define terms. Don’t assume that the reader knows what you know; their initial visit may be to learn something or be entertained (it isn’t very entertaining to not know what people mean). As the terms I use are usually abbreviations or acronyms I also use some uncommon HTML tags:
<abbr title="abbreviation">ABBR</abbr> tags are great for abbreviation.
   Alternatively, the acronym tag: <acronym title="National Science Foundation">NSF</acronym> (which I admit I don’t use as often as I should.)
5. Make sure there’s a way back to the homepage from every page. It’s terrible to get lost.
6. Avoid flash media. While great for embedding, flash isn’t necessarily accessible to everyone. (Consider screen reader, mobile phone and other non-traditional users.)