Copyright challenges facing the website design industry: a survey with creative directors in Hong Kong

Abstract

A website is considered to be the centrepiece of a company's information gateway on the one hand, but is also an object particularly vulnerable to copyright infringement on the internet on the other. This paper addresses the copyright challenges encountered by the website design industry in Hong Kong and explores whether the existing copyright law and policy are adequately equipped to deal with those challenges. A questionnaire survey was administered to 203 creative directors in Hong Kong to get an understanding of the status of copyright infringement and copyright awareness, as well as the sufficiency of the self-protection and legal protection measures available to the industry. The survey results discussed here have far-reaching implications for copyright protection in the digital environment.