Does copyright go a step too far?

Does copyright go a step to far?

On Wednesday 9th we had a visit from Peter Rodgers who has worked in current affairs for ITV as well as protecting income, property and the Journalists at the BBC. He came in to give us a law lecture on copyright and what sort of things have copyright even though we wouldn’t expect them to.

Copyright started in 1640 and covers sculptures, acting, singing, music, drama. Then in 1911 things such as paintings, architectural designs, fonts, logos were added to the list. When the European Law database was updated it included digital sources and the Internet that were covered by the law as it keeps up with all new forms of media.

Pop bands and artists need to have their rights registered and protected. Literally work is any other work other than dramatic work that is written or sung, dance or mime including programs such as Dancing on Ice is covered.

The law requires you to publish work (make it available to the public) for it to be covered by copyright. The work can be spoken, written or even published on the Internet.

Artistic works such as graphics, magazine, photographs even the design of lighting is covered by the law. An interesting fact he told us was that the Eiffel Tower in Paris is also covered by copyright at night when it is lit up with its pretty lights. This is due to the company that did the lighting wanting it to be covered by copyright and means that people aren’t actually allowed to take pictures of it when it is lit up at night (Whoops, I have). However as long as you aren’t a large broadcasting company I doubt they would ever know you have taken a picture without their permission so do not panic!

Sounds, as most of us know are also covered by the copyright law. However when we are out and about taking videos of things we are experiencing we are unaware that sounds going on around us may to be covered by copyright. For instance if we are in the town centre and our recording has someone playing music in the background we would need to check with them weather their music is covered by copyright or we would have to talk over or mute the sound if we didn’t have permission to use it.

Now there is a time when copyright runs out, although it may not be in our lifetime it is worth knowing. An author are covered by copyright for their entire life plus 70 years from the date that they died. Film is 70 years from when it was made plus various other factors whereas radio is 50 years. The owner has a restriction and protection of their own work to prevent copies of  it being made and to prevent it being used in performance or shared.

As we all may believe that You Tube is a free site for all of its videos and content, in fact it is not as Google pay its performance rights. As journalists will know there is a such thing as fair dealing which means you can use a snippet of someone’s work if it is credited, dated and mainly for reviewing. If you are using someone’s work for your own private study you do not need to worry as I doubt they would ever find out anyway.            

Moral rights are the producers decision, for instance what the author/writer acknowledge is stuck. An example of this is when a musician takes someone else’s lyrics and song but sings it in a different way such as a reggae tune. This right prevents artists from doing this if the singer doesn’t want their song sang this way. This right still remains when the singer dies if the work is still in copyright.

A film alone has so many copyrights such as its font, graphics, logos, recording, artist performance, script, DVD, music, musicians performance plus many more.

ITN on its Exposure program got charged a large amount for using IRA footage of a helicopter being shot down along with a perfect voice over piece of journalism. However it was when they showed some downloaded footage from YouTube of a computer game that the damages were done. It is believed that between 400,000 and 500,000 is a cheap settlement for big companies.

Another example is Richard from US who this year in March 2012 made the website TV shack for people to watch films for free whilst he made money from the revenue created by advertisements on the site. America found this and noticed he has breached the law as he doesn’t have a license and the outcome is unknown at the moment.

An example closer to home is the pub the Hobbit in Southampton who are connected to the film by naming its cocktails after the characters. This is an unauthorised use of copyright and they were nearly closed down completely when Hollywood lawyers somehow found out. Its website also copied the Hobbit theme, the weird thing about this story is how did the lawyers find out about a little pub here in the UK.

There is an explanation as to how they found out which many institutions are using nowadays to cut down on people using its content. The software searches the Internet for pictures belonging to individuals and then the next thing you know you receive a bill through your door. Believe it or not the ‘happy birthday’ song is covered by copyright.

The radio and commercial stations such as the BBC pay a % to the music copyright societies in order to be allowed to play their music. The BBC alone plays over 55,000 pieces of music across its channels.  If you use music in your work you need to check how it can be identified. The real question is must you use it in your work? If it is possible you should fade it or use a voice over. Even football club tunes are copyrighted to the club and are rarely included as it has to be overturned unless of course you are live, in that case you aren’t copying the work for your own.

People are pushing to try and change things all of the time but what you should do is try and find a legal way around it. We must also remember that labels are forms of copyright which is why sometimes on reality programs we see people’s labels on their close blurred out. In a review no images can be used unless they have been cleared by the owner. However you can use around 2 minutes of clips in a review as it is seen to be promotion as long as the film is current and being screened in the cinema.