Let us take a look at the picture on the left.

Who is the "author" of this picture?

You may remembered Jack Dawson, or even better, James Cameron. In fact, this picture is drawn, or more specifically "copied" (from the original sketch of Kate Winslet) by me.

However, I must say that I am NOT the author of this work. Why?

The idea of this work came from James Cameron. With the help of some TITANIC (movie) fansites, I downloaded a copy the picture. Then, I drew this picture out.

Finally, with the help of Adobe Photshop 5.5 and a scanner (from the CORE Multimedia Laboratory), I got part of this picture up on the net again.

Who, then, is the author of this work?

My conclusion is that there is no author of this work. There is no collaboration as the idea of copying this picture out is originally only from me.

In the same manner, works of many authors can be duplicated in cyberspace. The reader's share of the authorship is actually much more than one can expect. More than just determining the boundaries of a work, a reader could also put links, edit texts, copy texts from other authors'.

Lastly, I believe that there is no copyright violation as this picture is originally created by me. As an analogy, texts may have the same consequences as well. Readers could also copy texts and change their meaning, even though they (the reader's work and the orignal work may look very similar.


Authorship2 critical theory Cyberspace Web Main screen