Abstract - Quest for Global Competitiveness - Universidad de Puerto ...

T he l iterature review i n cluded the are as of la w, we bsit e design,c ontent analysis and f r anch i sin g. T here were f e w academic s ourcesi n the topic of le ga l i ssues in website deve lopment; one was focusedi n f ranch is in g which wa s not empirica l ( Brady, Monin, T in gle y, &S ke lton, 2 000; DuPree, 2007; Duva l l, 2 005; Oppenheimer, 2008) .D i xon and Quinn ( 2004) perf ormed a content analysis of the u se,c ontent and f eatures of United K ingdom f ra nch is or we bsit es, but d idnot analyze any l e ga l is sues. Mo st sources on the i s sue a re f romp rofessional publications, such a s, F ranch is ing W o rld of theInternational F ranchise Association.T he s tudy f ocu s es on the le ga l s oundness of the f ra nch is or’swe bsit e on a f e w a re as that a re: (a ) ke y f o r the le ga l p ro tect ion ofthe f ranch i so r and (b ) readily ve r if iable t hro u gh an e xamin ation ofthe website withou t the a id of any e xt raneous information. T he le gala reas of i nterest a re the f ollo wing: (a ) Intellectual p ropert yp rotect ion, ( b) W eb accessibilit y, ( c ) U se of t e st imonia ls , and (d )C omparative advertis in g.Intellectual Property ProtectionIn it s m o st basi c defin it ion, Intellectual Propert y (IP) i s a p ro duct ofthe human in tellect that has commerc ia l va lue. It i ncludes a wider ange of c reations, su ch a s m o vies, so n gs , computer source codes,o r a company l o go or se c ret re cip e ( VanderB roeck & D'Ange lo, 2008;D uffin & W atson, 2009). W hen c a refully considered, the m osti m portant a sse ts of m any of the m ost important companie s in thewo r ld are Intellectual P ropert y. In ge neral, IP can be divided intof our d i st inct i ve catego rie s: Copyrights, T rademark s, Patents, an dT r ade S ecrets. In p a rt icu la r, wh en i t c ome s to information suppliedi n a website, we decided to f ocus on the p rotect ion of copyrightss in ce it m o r e d ifficult to r ely o n t he w ebsite a lone to d eterminewh ether the other three catego r ies are vu lnerable or n o t.C opyrigh t Law p rotect s a l l t ypes of c reative e xpression, in cludingwh at t he f ranchiso r includes in it s w e bsit e (e . g. text, image s, m usic,and video). T h is p rotect ion s tarts the m oment it i s in tangib le f orm.In other wo r ds, wh en the w ebsite i s c reated and p ublished, i t isp rotected b y C opyright Law(T h e Copyright A ct, 1976). Ho we ve r, ther i ghts of the copyright holder ( i.e. the w ebsite o wner) a re enhancedwh en i t pla ce s a notic e on t he w ebsite wa rn in g that it i s a wo r kp rotected by copyr i ghts. Countries and re gions, a s in the ca se of theEuropean U nion, a round the world have their o wn copyrigh t la w withtheir own requirements. Therefore, we hypothesize that:H 1A:U .S. f ranch i so rs ’ and n on -U.S. f ranch iso r s ’ websiteswill dif f er on their use of copyright no tice.4