I grew up before computers, Wikipedia, the internet and social media. When I went to school, if you didn’t understand something, you needed to raise your hand and hope you articulated your question correctly and that you received a response that you understood. If you couldn’t ask the question in school, you hoped that you could ask someone who might know, or look it up in an encyclopedia or another book.
That’s probably why I didn’t do that well in school. I was shy and afraid to raise my hand out of fear that everyone already knew the answer and would think it was a stupid question. I used to love reading the Encyclopedias which we had aligning our bookcases when I was growing up and often searched there for answers to questions I had. If I was growing up today, I believe I would be a much better student. All the answers to everything would be right at my fingertips. Information is immediate today. Many people are glued to their phones or other devices to see the latest news feeds or find an answer to a question they are discussing with someone or just wondering about.
As a designer of multimedia websites, the amount of people potentially having access to your intellectual property is endless. Copyrights are very important because they can protect your intellectual property. One definition for copyright is that it protects original works of authorship, including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic and certain other works, both published and unpublished.
Our responsibility to the creators of media is that they need to be acknowledged and listed as the creator. This is a requirement for anyone using media and is common ethical practice. Unfortunately, not everyone is governed by the same ethics, so it is best to be safe and copyright material that is important to you.
It is amazing how Chapter 8 of “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” is so similar to Wikipedia. Douglas Adams was definitely a foreseer into the future. He even described how the Hitchhiker’s Guide was compiled and recompiled many times over and under many different editorships; exactly like Wikipedia.