Lately, through some of the assignments I’ve had at work, I’ve become acutely aware of intellectual property issues. Many of us are tempted, when we need an image or bit of text, to jump online, run our favorite search engine, and grab the first thing that suits our purpose. After all, since text, images, audio, and video are freely available on the Web, doesn’t that mean they can be freely used?

I admit that I’m among those who would love to get free stuff from the Web all the time and be able to use it in any way I like. To create the gryphon image on my site, I used a couple of photographs from sites that provided license to use and modify the images. It’s great to have things that wide open. There are those selfless souls who place their intellectual property out on the Web and allow everyone to reuse and repurpose it without limits—but I would guess that there are more people like me who like to take advantage of them and at the same time don’t want to invest our own time and resources to offer what we do for nothing.

Many of us are possessive of our content. Businesses pay people to create content, so it only makes sense to want to charge for it. Or I went to all the trouble to write it or draw it with my own time and money, and people should be willing to reward me. Or at least acknowledge me.

It has been an amazing phenomenon to me that we have gone from a society that creates mainly sellable goods to one that creates less tangible products like text and images. There’s still a vacuum in your closet, a microwave in your kitchen, and a computer in front of you. But much of what’s produced by professionals these days is that which is produced by the mind rather than the hands in a manner of speaking, hence the term intellectual property.

I thought it and put it in writing. I imagined it and created an image. Therefore, I own it. I inherently own the rights to that material, and you don’t.

Sure that I wasn’t the first to think about the illusion of “the free Web,” I googled this term and found an article from PC Magazine last May entitled “Is the Free Web about to Expire?” While making a strong point, it seems that this article is talking about consuming content, though, not perpetuating it, reselling it, or changing it.

Even if creators of intellectual property don’t charge for the use of something, we have to realize that just because it’s out there and can be freely viewed, license may not be provided to do what we will with it. I think the concept of the “free Web” has given some people the idea that if they can get it, it’s okay to reuse it. But in this day and age, when people look for reasons to take others to court, it’s better to be careful than to get that perfect image and hope that no one ever calls you on it.

One of the benefits of being a technical communicator with various skills—writing, illustrating, video—is that the more skills you have, the less you have to rely on others’ intellectual property. For example, when creating illustrations for quick guides, I’d rather draw something in Illustrator myself so that I know I have the rights to use it and modify it. If you become proficient with such tools, then you can whip up something that’s more than decent inside an hour.

When you think of the free Web in the context of not having to pay for something, remember that there’s another aspect: Nearly everything that’s on the Web belongs to someone. And because the Web is so widely accessible, it’s entirely possible that if you abuse someone’s rights regarding their intellectual property, they will discover it and exercise their rights.

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