This week, we looked once again at Copyright, but a bit more in-depth than last week. Copyright is a huge part of the journalism know-how, just as Defamation and Libel are, so it makes sense to cover this subject in depth a bit more.
Copyright is there to protect your intellectual property. The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988 is used, as McNae states, to protect "the product of Skill, Creativity, Labour and/or Time". It also describes a breach or infringement of copyright as "making beneficial use or exploiting someone else's intellectual work without permission". However, as explained before, you cannot copyright "ideas", until they become a tangible piece of work that you have created yourself.
So what exactly does Copyright protect? Copyright can pretty much protect anything and everything that is the product of original work, but it mostly applies to any works that are in print, film or music as these are creative substances that people are more likely to want to copy in the first place. But anything that can be deemed as original work can be subjected to Copyright. And why should we care about Copyright? Because without Copyright protection, journalism itself would never have flourished as everyone would simply be reprinting the general news over and over again. Copyright itself maintains exclusivity which gives the product value to people. This generally means that if something is Copyrighted, then it is the only kind of whatever it is (or at least, the only version). So, for example, Star Wars is Copyrighted, which means no one else can write a script set in a galaxy far, far away, shoot it and market it under the name Star Wars, which is what makes Star Wars itself so good because there isn't anything copying it. There may be parodies of Star Wars (i.e. The Family Guy Star Wars episodes, or Robot Chicken Star Wars), but they are either a) So far from the original idea that they themselves become an original idea based around an existing one or b) have already paid Lucasarts for likeness rights to their characters and storyline to be used in something that isn't directly copying Star Wars.
This leads me into the issues of who gets paid what. In the case of music downloads, that relates back to copyright and creative control of a product from the artist, which is why many free downloading sites have now been privatised, and the reason that some file sharing sites are still functioning is because the files that are there for sharing have originally been purchased as per normal standards, and are simply being shared to other people that want it without paying for it. Of course, this hardly makes it right, but it does start off with the artist being paid for their work in the normal manner. Though I'm sure eventually these file sharing sites will also be taken down, and the music industry will begin to recover losses from such sites.
So, what happens if you breach Copyright? What can happen? Breaching Copyright will cost you:
--> Money
--> Embarrassment and Stress
--> And above all, your Reputation for Competence.
So overall, its probably not worth it!
Some companies will be likely to charge you for using their archive footage if you are running a piece that requires it, but if it is part of your already (hopefully) extensive library of footage. However, to get round this, what will sometimes happen is production companies will release trailers of a film due for release that can be used by other mediums and companies without Copyright infringement in the weeks leading up to the films release. This way, the companies using it can do so without paying for it and without breaching Copyright laws, and the production companies get further advertising on more mediums than they would otherwise have done. Essentially, Win-Win.
Papers have been "lifting" other papers stories for years, but this is only under the laws of Fair Dealing, which we discussed last week. The usage of material under these fair dealing laws must be:
--> Fair
--> Accurate
--> In Public Interest.
This being in place allows a wider reporting of current stories, criticism and reviews, and even obituaries of actors and filmmakers that have died, so that their best work can be played in memory of them. However, one thing to remember from all of this is that photographs are NOT subject to fair dealings, as it is very difficult to use part of a photograph to portray what you need. These, you have to get on your own!
The danger areas where it is most easy to breach Copyright is through mediums such as Facebook and YouTube, as lifting videos and photos from these would be breaching Copyright. YouTube itself might not hold the laws for Copyright over the videos, as it is mainly a publishing medium, but the people who put the videos up on YouTube DO hold some Copyright leverage as it is their creative property. Though, because this is the Internet, it becomes slightly more difficult to have a tighter grasp over your creative product, so putting it on the Internet in the first place means that you are loosening your grip on your product to a certain extent already.
The best ways to stay safe from Copyright issues is to recognise issues early , so contacting rights holders is always the place you should start, though this does take time. And when in doubt, don't lift any material without referencing to a superior first!
For more information on this subject, and other Journalism subjects, go to www.winchesterjournalism.co.uk
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