Answer: cookies

Cookies? Yes. Let me explain...

=> COOKIES EXPLAINED

A "cookie" is simply a small piece of text information which a web server stores temporarily with your web visitor's browser. (Note: cookies are *not* programs.) This means your visitor's browser remembers some specific information which web server can later retrieve.

So cookies simply allow your site to store information on your visitor's computer for later retrieval.

A basic example of a cookie in action can be found here - http://members.rediff.com/lc/cookies.htm

Another example is "online shopping mall" that uses cookies to add items to a user's "shopping cart" as they browse. And I use cookies on my own website to make sure a pop-up window loads ONCE ONLY ( http://www.shoptour.co.uk/webmaster.shtml ).

=> WHY YOUR WEBSITE SHOULD USE COOKIES

Basically, cookies allow you to improve a site visitor's experience of your website. I've listed a few examples to show how this can be achieved: * Cookies can store visitor preferences. This means you can present customised information to your visitor, as per their own requirements. (This is how portal sites like MSN work.)

* Cookies can pre-fill form fields for your visitor.

* Cookies can automatically login visitors to your site

* Cookies can provide visitor statistics and therefore help you understand your visitor's needs. Cookies can provide site metrics like unique visitors, average number of page-views, percentage of repeat visitors et cetera. And cookie-generated statistics are much more accurate than using log files.

(Do remember though, that people sometimes share computers; some browsers are set to reject cookies; and cookies can be erased.)

So not only are cookies an efficient way of keeping track of information, they also help personalise your site visitor's experience of your site.

Think about it for a minute. If no on could ever make a copy of anything without copyright owner's permission, then commentary, critical articles, news reporting, research papers and education would be much more difficult. It would be much more difficult, for example, to write a book report without including a quote or two from author. It would be even more difficult to write a thesis, term paper or research article without including quotes from dozens or even hundreds of sources.

Let's say you were writing an article on copyright and you needed to illustrate a point. You could write your own words (and you should), but you would have a much more powerful article if you included some quotes from reputable sources. It makes it appear that you have done your research and gives you additional authority that you might not otherwise be granted.

In fact, it would be downright silly to require people to get permission to make quotes of this nature. Imagine how difficult it would be if you were writing a term paper which included references from a hundred difficult sources. You would have to track down each author and ask permission. Many times author has given up copyright to some other entity, so you would have to do further research on who really owns copyrights. This could conceivably require more time than writing paper itself!

To enable you to include quotes of other author's works, an exemption to United States copyright law was created. This allows for "commentary, parody, news reporting, research and education about copyrighted works without permission of author (from "10 Big Myths about copyright explained", just to illustrate how this works).

So how does this work? Well, some of more important considerations are:

- Your intent in copying work - How much of work was copied - As well as any damage to commercial value of work.

So, for example, if you were writing an article about quality of movie "The Mummy Returns", you could use brief quotes from film to illustrate your point. However, if you included entire script on your web site, well, that would be a copyright violation.

In general, it is a good idea to include a reference to original source material. This serves many purposes, one of most important being simple common courtesy (in fact, I often like to let author know I have borrowed some of his words). It also makes it clear that you have invoked fair use, and it gives your readers a source for additional information. Just as important, you improve your own credibility by showing you have done your research and you are not afraid to allow others to see how you came to your conclusions.

To further illustrate, following would most likely be covered under fair use:

- Including brief quotes from published papers for your research papers.

- Writing an article on your web site about Simpsons and including a WAV file quoting Homer. Perhaps something like "Homer's 'Doh' has become famous world over", with a hyperlink to a WAV file for "Doh".

- Criticizing a book and including a few quotes to illustrate your point.

- Criticizing a book and including quotes from other critics to reinforce your point.

The following would most likely be considered copyright violations: