Multimedia Copyright Protection on the Web - Issues and Suggestions

With the rapid technological advances of the computer and the Internet, multimedia data is becoming increasingly widespread. People of all backgrounds are able to create, modify and distribute multimedia data around the world. Multimedia has essentially ushered in a new era of communication and information flow, which has had a significant impact on society. Creators have more opportunities to create content, specifically in the multimedia format. In addition, the intellectual property law plays a key role in protecting the value of multimedia works. However, in reality, it is not easy for the legal system to cope with changes regarding the format and content of multimedia works. In this paper we address the concept of multimedia, the role of copyright, and the technologies that can be used to protect the copyrights of multimedia work. We also discuss current issues on multimedia copyrights on the Web and present our suggestions to multimedia copyright protection on the Web.