Dear all, This interesting discussion seems to go on and on, very good :) I found in YouTube's terms of use a point which states that: "The Content on the Service, and the trademarks, service marks and logos ("Marks") on the Service, are owned by or licensed to YouTube, subject to copyright and other intellectual property rights under the law.[...] You affirm, represent, and warrant that you own or have the necessary licenses, rights, consents, and permissions to publish Content you submit; and you license to YouTube all patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other proprietary rights in and to such Content for publication on the Service pursuant to these Terms of Service." So basically it is OK if I leave usernames out but refer to YouTube as the source since it owns the copyright for all content on the service. Or does YouTube merely own copyright for republication of content on YouTube? This is a mess :) Maria Quoting "Christopher Richter" <crichter@hollins.edu>:
Maria,
Shannon Oltmann is correct on the copyright issue--in U.S. law, at least, the fact that the comments are published in a fixed form means they are copyrighted. Normally the author owns the copyright, but it can depend on the terms of service for the forum where they material is published--e.g. on-line newspapers may own the rights if the works were created as works for hire. All that said, you are safe doing in-depth analysis of these without violating copyright law, and can even safely quote important examples, as long as you don't republish significantly large sections of individual pieces. You can quote, but quote judiciously.
Citing where you retrieved originals so that others can see a primary source in its entirety is standard for published material, but you hesitate to cite the sources because you are concerned about the ethics of privacy.
If these are all statements from "publicly available discussions from YouTube, various online newspapers and celebrity-related forums," then, as Mark Johns notes, the original authors have already chosen to make them public.
So the issue turns on the question of whether on-line fora should be treated like traditional publications--no ethical dilemmas in citing--or whether their authors should be treated like the traditional research subjects that are recruited for interviews, experiments, ethnographies, etc., whom for sensitive topics should be guaranteed confidentiality, and further, should be briefed up front, or debriefed afterward, on the purpose of the study.
Though I would lean toward the former, especially for online newspapers. But you really need to check with your doctoral institution. Most U.S. colleges and Universities, at least, have some type of human research board, the members of which formulate specific policies on when permission, confidentiality, etc. are required.
Hope this helps.
Christopher J. Richter
Associate Professor, Communication Studies Hollins University 8015 Quadrangle Lane PO Box 9652 Roanoke, VA 24020-1652
Tel: 5403626358 Fax: 5403626286 crichter@hollins.edu www.hollins.edu
-----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Maria Eronen Sent: Friday, May 06, 2011 7:21 AM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: [Air-L] a question about privacy protection and copyright in Internet research
Dear all,
I am Maria, a PhD student from Finland and currently working with my thesis concerning how celebrity gossip leads to moral discussion on the Internet. I think I have some problems with research ethics. My research material consists of publicly available discussions from YouTube, various online newspapers and celebrity-related forums. Because I'm conducting linguistic analysis, it is reasonable to cite comments from those online discussions.
One central topic I am focusing on is autobiographical moralizing (for example, discussion participants compare violence involving celebrities with their own-life experiences of violence, such as telling how their partner once hit them). This kind of material is what I categorize as sensitive and see it better not to refer to pseudonyms or usernames. I make it clear in my work that in some cases I see it better to stress privacy protection over copyright. However, I will mention the forum, where the comments come from, as a source (such as YouTube). I have personally contacted every one whose comments I see as sensitive. I want to use even senstive comments because they are valuable material from the point of view of the research. No one of them whom I contacted has said no. But of course, I'm not even sure whether they have seen the posts I sent to them (actually one replied to me and just wanted to know more about the study).
In order to protect myself, I have not copied the whole comments, but left some parts of them out of the publication. The problem is now that by letting them know such a research they might see their posts in the dissertation and start a law case (because I don't authorize their words). The comments I cite without referring to the users as authors do not seem as pieces of creative art, but they are typical examples of online discussion.
However, I'm a bit concerned because the posters whom I cite without permission, are American. The work itself will be published in Finland.
Do you think this kind of privacy protection is a good reason to leave the usernames out? Am I too concerned or could this lead to serious consequences? Has anyone had similar experiences?
I would be very thankful if you had time to help me,
all the best, Maria Eronen
_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/