In Part 3 of the series on Copyright Basics for Graphic Designers, I will look at some of the main issues that arise when you take your work online and how you can continue to protect your copyright while exploring new ways of sharing your work with a wider audience.

The internet is not public domain

One of the first myths about content on the internet is that it is free for everyone to use, copy and share. This is a dangerous misconception which can lead to some messy disputes.

Take a recent example of a photographer who found that a mainstream UK newspaper had used one of his photos on the popular photo-sharing website, Flickr, without his permission. Although the photographer had clearly posted a notice on his Flickr page that “all rights were reserved”; the newspaper still assumed that because Flickr was a free-to-use website, it hosted public domain content which was free for anyone to use.

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