Copyright

Copyright protects intellectual property and people’s creativity. Fair dealing means that you can ‘lift’ quotes or use a snippet of someone’s exclusive interview (for example) as long as you do not use large amounts from it. We must attribute it if we use other people’s material. You should always identify the risk and realise when something is copyright and find out if you are able to use it.

There was a news story in December 2012 where Apple were fined by a China court for copyright violation. They ordered that Apple pay eight Chinese writers and two companies for violating their copyrights. They claimed that unlicensed electronic copies of their books had been sold on Apple's online store. 

An example of this is the ‘Newport’ video on YouTube that uses the theme tune to Jay Z’s well known song ‘New York’. However, they did make up their own words for the video but it followed a similar scenario to the singers version. Jay Z’s record company actually managed to get the video forced off YouTube which resulted in them gaining a lot of publicity in the papers. This was probably due to the video being so popular and gaining so many hits. At the moment, copyright is being cleaned up and a new clause will state that parody is allowed meaning the video can go back online.

This week we had the news that Shirley Temple died. Of course this was all over the news as she was a very famous actress. The BBC produced a package that contained footage of when Shirley first started out as a young girl. This is allowed under ‘fair dealing’ as they only used less than 30 seconds of each clip. It is also relevant as it is in the public interest relating to a news story so makes the video relevant.

If you work for the BBC they have an archive that has a green, amber and red light system to show the status of the copyright material which is really useful. The archive also contains lots of footage interviews and images that belong to the BBC over a long period of time. This was how they were able to link James Bond to an Austin Martin story. They included a clip from the film ‘Casino Royal’, and also played the James Bond theme tune in the package. They were able to play a clip of Casino Royal as it has just been released which meant they could use the trailer as it was publicity. They were invited into the Austin Martin car garage so would have had consent to film in there. The old footage that they used from many years ago in the factory would have come from the very useful archive that the BBC keep as it would have been their own footage.

It is useful to remember that if you are working for a smaller company that you can use images if you cannot afford to pay for the video as these are a lot cheaper. Images are not covered by ‘fair dealing’ so there is no defence if you are caught using images that are copyright. You cannot take a picture of use a specific part of an image either if it is protected by copyright. It is common to see companies putting watermark across their images to prevent people from using them. There was an example in The Daily Mirror on the image of John Darwin with the headline ‘Canoe’s this in Panama’, when he fake his death and was found abroad. This image was red hot as no one else had it, the BBC asked The Mirror to buy rights to use it for a week which they accepted. However it was later found that The Mirror did not own rights for this image and the photographer sued both companies and earned lots of money from it.

Undeveloped ideas are not protected by copyright; so, ideas such as catch- phrases and slogans can be taken by others. There was a debate when the best selling book ‘The Divinci Code’ was released as the author of the books ‘Holy Blood’ and ‘Holy Grail’ said that it was their idea. They took Dan Brown to court for stealing their idea for a potential book but lost as there is no copyright law that covers ideas. Copyright maintains exclusivity which gives our product value. We can lift the thrust of stories and quotes from rivals through the fair dealing act.

There are certain things to be covered by the defence of fair dealing that must be done when reporting current events:

1.     Attribution- you must always attribute the work to the person that owns its copyright.

2.     In the public interest- what you are writing about must include some sort of public interest factor.

3.     Usage must be fair- you generally cannot use anymore than half of the work, it is down to your own judgement how much you think you can use.

If you want to use more of someone’s work then you should contact the rights holder.

Fair dealing allows you to criticise  copyright material in the form of a review. It allows you to gain wider reporting of stories in the public interest. Broadcast news obit of film stars so we can use famous movie clips for free.

The danger areas are things from YouTube, Facebook, sports coverage, photographs and archives. Sports coverage have big contracts for their filming and showing of goals. This is similar with the Formula One and their footage of the drivers racing in their cars.

There is a news access agreement for sport where you can’t re- roll and show goals over and over again all day. What you can do is show the goals during your four main bulletins throughout the day. A minute of action is usually what you see from football as it is seen as fair usage.

You should always recognise who has the copyright for material that you want to use; weather they are likely to sue or not. Contacting the rights holder can take a lot of time so it may be too late to use their work if you get permission. Make sure you let others in the office know if you get copyright cleared. Don’t lift material without reference up.