More and more researchers are doing research on the world wide web. The prime method for displaying natural processes is with screenshots. In many research areas screenshots are the web researchers equivalent to doing interviews or questionnaires. And of course, we like to publish the text with embedded screenshots in an article in a digital web based journal. But is that possible according to current copyright rules?
One problem is that copyright laws are national while Internet is without borders. Another problem is that a web page is an example of convergence media. A web page might contain several different instances of media, by multiple authors belonging to different countries. It is a fact that prevailing copyright laws are an obstacle in the research on world wide web.