Last quarter I wrote a paper for my sociolinguistics class on “Expressive and Prosodic Elements in Internet Registers of English” (translation: the way people use text to convey online ways of speaking that wouldn’t normally be communicated through text, like tone, speed, pitch and pronunciation). My professor and I have discussed the possibility of publishing an expanded version of that as an undergraduate research paper.
Now, when I was just putting the paper together for a grade, it was for “educational purposes” and I could kinda bypass the usual copyright and permission laws. If I publish it, I can’t do that.
Does anyone know the laws and regulations concerning online sources? I know that were I to use my examples from the SDMB, I’d need permission from the Chicago Reader (which I’m unlikely to get) and the poster him or herself. Most websites, I’m assuming I need permission for whoever holds the copyrights for the page. But what about IRC channels? Do I have to inform the people in a chat room that I’m logging the chat for possible publishing? Do I have to get individuals’ permission, or is it considered a public kinda dealie? What about in-game chat from things like Counterstrike or Diablo 2? LiveJournals? Public message boards where no copyright holder is specified?
For that matter, how do I cite these things? My battered, second-hand copy of the MLA handbook is from 1988, so it’s more than a little sketchy about online sources, but even the more recent versions I’ve seen mainly give guidelines for things like websites and newsgroups. In the version of the paper I turned in, I totally gave up on trying to make a “real” bibliography page and just organized the sources (which included Fark, bash.org, IRC and battle.net channels, the SDMB and even my mom) in a table. Obviously not gonna work in a published paper.
My prof suggested the university’s human research subjects type office, but their website mainly deals with experiments on human subjects (am I really gonna risk violating the Nuremburg code?) and didn’t have anything to say on things like this. So I turn to the wise and all-knowing Teeming Millions for advice.
– Dragon “I 4m teh l1ngu1st!!!1!~” blink