ABSTRACT
The Internet is a new space for the creation of writing (Barlow, 1994; Bolter, 1991). Traditional legal notions can protect stable print texts, but in the hypertext environment, where texts can change and move, it is difficult to apply traditional notions of authorship to the Internet (Kress, 1997, 2003). Internet “works” can be created as text, images or graphics in an intangible medium. Additional problems arise where the Internet provides for rapid and easy copying of sections or whole works (Gurak, 2001; Lankshear and Snyder, 2000; Larson, 2001; Lincoln, 2002; Litman, 2001). As the Romantic view of authorship has previously relied upon the idea that a work has specific boundaries, it becomes problematic to apply
“ownership” has always applied to tangible works.
