Internet Code of Ethics.

15-th of December, 2008

Inethics expert group (a group of experts in Internet ethics), developing Internet Code of Ethics is purposefully dealing with copyright protection problem in Internet.

Inethics suggests several type of means to protect copyright in Internet. It:

1. Contacts with site’s administration in order to modify site content in case there are reports on copyright infringement cases.
2. Provides professional consulting on copyright violation in Internet.
3. Assists authors, moderators and users in handling copyright infringement issues in Internet

Every user can ask any questions on this at the forums of Inethics Web site www.inethics.com

Inethics group receives reports and complaints from administrators, text authors and other Web surfers. The issues mentioned belong to a very wide assortment of problems. They can be generally grouped as: “copyright and related rights violation”, “unethical information in Internet”, “users gaining unrestricted access to information that is under normal circumstances unavailable to them”.

Evgeny Yadryshnikov, head of Inethics group, says: “Copyright infringement in Internet is a topical and quite an urgent theme. There are many copycat sites, sites raising ratings using external popular content, “garbage sites” with mixed-type content taken from 3-rd party sites and completely irrelevant”.

No one wishes to restrict users' freedom in Internet, but everything should follow Internet ethical norms, obeying existing laws and respecting authors rights. We encourage all the specialists in this area to unite in an Internet Copyright Council; we urge all the authors to communicate with one another in order to find a solution to all the copyright violation i Internet solution. As one of the Inethic codex rule goes, plagiarism is not tolerable”.

Vitaly Eryomin, an advocate, a member of Inethics group, says: “Nowadays many state and social leaders, taking into account swift Internet growth, agree that this area requires constant control, supervision. The question is what kind of control should it be. The one based on generally accepted ethical norms,without law enforcing – or the state one, based mostly on laws enforcement, based on stated responsibility for these laws violation. There are many unsolved problems in this area, both theoretical and practical. Russian laws do not exclude intellectual property from their scope (see the fourth part of Civil Codex of Russian Federation), but the existing laws can't be successfully used in real life in case of Internet-related issues.

Inethics expert group aims to find the optimal means to solve the mentioned problems, we are always open to all the suggestions and ideas discussion. It should be stressed that an active participation of state persons can help a lot. Talking of me, I suggest currently to pay attention to consolidated means of Internet regulation, i.e. the Internet community is partially accepting Inethics (ethical norms of Internet activity), and partially – by existing laws. In my opinion, it would allow to direct people within cyberspace taking into account their goals, tasks and views”.

Inethics
Inethics expert group (the name derived from “Internet ethics”) has been created in 2006, in Moscow. It unites young scientists and specialists in ethics, philosophy, politology, Internet, PR, IT, law, further specializing in inethics (Internet ethics problems). In the spring of 2008 Inethics has announced the main statements of Internet Code of Ethics.

Evgeny Yadryshnikov is the head of Inethics group, the author of Internet Code of Ethics project; he's an postgraduate in Moscow State University.
WWW: www.inethics.com

Contact us for further information:
Head of Inethics expert group:
Evgeny Yadryshnikov
Cell phone: +7 (915) 204 19 72
www.inethics.com
mediainethics [dot] com