Transcript ppt
Legal and Ethical Issues Overview • Issues of responsibility for libel, obscenity and indecency • Aspects of copyright • Issues involved in user agreement contracts • Legal and ethical issues of linking • Ethics of writing blogs Libel • Libel - publication of false information that is defamatory • Statements contained in Web pages, chat rooms or discussion boards are considered subject to libel suits • Who is held accountable for libel? Forum Shopping • A U.S. news organization that publishes a Web site could be sued for libel by a country located half way around the world • Forum shopping gives plaintiffs the power to choose courts likely to rule in their favor. Obscenity and Indecency • Communications Decency Act of 1996— sought to apply strict indecency standards to Internet • Supreme Court has ruled that the Internet should not be regulated as strictly as television broadcasts • Attempts to restrict indecent material on the Internet violated the First Amendment Copyright • Copyright law protects Web pages, emails and postings to discussion groups • Such items are recognized by law as being the property of their authors • Fair use—allows others to use part of a copyrighted work in certain situations • Public Domain Copyright and the Internet • No previous medium has made it so easy to copy its content • Napster - most famous Internet copyright case • Grokster compromise • Online journalists should generally assume that everything on the Internet is copyrighted, unless it is expressly offered for public domain use (e.g., some government sites) User Agreements • Nearly every online journalism site has a set of rules in which they set conditions for the use of the site • In some cases, user agreements are restrictive and could damage free flow of information Linking Law • Legal issues with linking involve copyright and unfair competition • • • • • Deep linking Inline linking Framing Associative linking Linking to illegal or infringing material Ethical Issues—Linking • Will the link promote controversial points of view? • Are different points of view presented fairly and are they well balanced? • Are editorial and advertising content clearly separated? Legal/Ethical Issues—Blogging • Can journalists be bloggers? • Is the journalist acting as a journalist when he or she blogs? • Is the journalist’s media organization responsible for what he or she writes? Amateur Journalism? • 1999 Texas A&M Bonfire Collapse • Austin360.com post-it forums became a place of mourning • BUT, evolved into an “EMS leak” board • Content Managers began to moderate board and censor posts. • New relationship between audience and media?