Copyright 2.0

Since my last blog on copyright, which focused on the lecture given by Peter Hodges. I have been fortunate enough to also be treated to the Chris Horrie copyright experience. My findings are as follows.

Copyright is a branch of law that protects intellectual property, intellectual property is what we use to make money, therefore, it is very important. The most important thing to remember, is that ideas are not copyrighted (as I have previously mentioned), therefore you have to find some way to publish it and gain copyright protection. I will explain using an analogy that Chris gave us. You are a shed builder. You have built a shed, and that shed belongs to you. Once you sell it, it becomes the property of the buyer, as if he made it himself. The same applies if you build sheds for a wage. As soon as you are paid for your work, it ceases to be yours. This is why you don't see assembly line workers running after cars (or whatever) shouting that they've had their hubcaps stolen.

Obviously this is a broad definition, and there are exceptions. If you wrote a book, for example, you have put in your time and effort, and (we assume) you have not been paid to do so. The story belongs to you and once published, every time a copy is bought, you receive payment in the form of royalties. This is similar to freelance reporters. As opposed to reporters that work for a paper/network etc. For whom, once they write a report, it becomes the property of said paper/network. Freelancers on the other hand, are paid for the use of their work. They effectively lease out their work, and can do this as many times as they like and still retain ownership of their 'shed' (like renting out a house, rather than selling it).

Returning to the book-writing scenario I just mentioned. You receive your royalties initially as an advance sum, the amount of which depends on how well they think your book will sell. If your book does better than anticipated, you will be given extra royalties. If it does worse, then you keep your advance but get nothing extra and in future will receive lower offers for any other books you may write, as they will not be expected to do very well.

Lifting, or fair dealing, allows you to use certain copyrighted material to report current events, only if you sufficiently acknowledge the author, and if it has been made available to the public. Fair dealing is what allows criticism or review, though you have to be careful not to 'lift' too much. There is no set cap on how much you may use, but it is advisable to keep it to a minimum. You would not be allowed to used dishonestly obtained material, McNae's gives an example of this involving the Sun using stills from a security video showing Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed at the Villa Windsor. The judge found this to be an infringement of copyright which could not be defended. It is also worth noting that photographs are never protected by fair dealing.

The Huffington Post, a citizen journalism site that I have mentioned in a previous blog, has been criticised as being too friendly with using links to other news sites as a way of padding out their own stories. I am not sure whether links count as lifting as they are used to direct readers to a separate site that owns the content. I would personally prefer to use links rather than quote large amounts of text from other news media, though the length would be a factor, however I try not to use them unless I want to bring an entire story to attention, rather than just certain parts. As links are a fairly recent tool for reporting, I am not sure whether they are covered in copyright law. If anyone can point me in a direction to find out, I would be much obliged, as I've pretty much talked myself out of wanting to use them!