When I was in college I took a class called “Church Law & Taxes” and for the most part it was supremely boring, but a few topics stood out that I really enjoyed such as copyright laws in irregular situations like sermons. As the Internet has grown, so has popularity in many different aspects of copyrights and piracy. Many bloggers do not concern themselves with this topic as their blogs don’t get enough traffic to really matter, but it is a big deal. Many companies go out of their way to try to make sure their content is used only by them as their content may play a crucial role in making money. I read an article recently describing what to do about potential copyright infringement on the Internet—interesting stuff.
Other websites take a different approach: xkcd licenses it’s content under a creative commons license, and other sites like news web sites offer the majority of their material free of charge and sell advertising. It’s difficult to know which avenue to choose when publishing content on the Internet, but I find the law aspects of it fascinating, and have been accused of being a “license junkie” because of my knowledge of open source licenses. Personally, I have chosen to retain all rights to my content—at least for now.