Copyright report (P6)

Copyright:

This is type of “Intellectual property” (An idea or plan). Copyright a concept that holds importance in legal terms, giving rights to the author of any creative works. It allows them the ability to decide how the work is copied, used or distributed, and who is allowed to work with it. Copyright is extremely important for the creators of work, as it gives them ownership of that work, and defends them from people using their work for gain without their permission. Without copyright, someone could simply take someone’s creative work and sell it for profit, with the creator of that work receiving no payment from it. When work is used by others under copyright, it is usually a requirement to reference that the work is created by the author.

Copyright in global terms:

Most countries recognise some form of copyright, though there are differences, and example would be that in the USA, education is a complete exemption from copyright (as long as the work is not used for commercial purposes), whereas in the UK, there are more rules about how the work is used for educational purposes. Copyright will last for the lifetime of the creator, and then seventy years after their death. Once this period has expired, however, the work loses copyright and can be used freely. Another difference between countries is that in the UK, copyright is non-transferable, whereas in the USA, it is. There is no international copyright law, though there is a treaty signed by over 160 countries that defines the minimum levels of copyright law allowed in the country. The centre for copyright clearance mentions some of the standards that are set by the treaty:

“The right to be identified as the author of a work, the right of integrity (that is, the right to forbid alteration, mutilation or distortion of the work), and the right of first divulgation (that is, making public) of the work.”

 Copyright permissions:

To be able to use copyrighted material (if what you wish to do with the work does not fall under and relevant copyright exemptions), permission must be gained from the author. Firstly, it will be necessary to find and contact the creator of the work, and this is usually quite easy, as most copyrighted works will have a link to the author’s details on the work, and if that is not there, usually searching the web for the name of the creative work will bring up details of the author. To actually ask for permission, there are a few different ways to create a license for using that work. This can be done verbally, electronically, or by written agreement, though the first option is not always advisable due to the fact that there is likely to be no objective recording of the agreement, so it would be hard to prove there was an agreement should the matter go to court. Some creative works are “Copyright free”, though this does not free in the traditional sense. This means that either the copyright has expired, or the author has decided to remove their own entitlement to enforce the copyright.

 Copyright exemptions:

This legal concept does have exemptions for certain usages and circumstances. One of these would be if the work is understood to be involved in “Current events”. A couple of simple examples of this would be a part of a movie being shown by a news program, or a piece of art that is of importance at the time being shown. This also ties in with critique and review, which is another exemption to copyright. This means that the work can be shown and used if it is being reviewed or critiqued (which is generally accepted to mean that they are showing the work to explain their opinion of it). This exemption does have limitations however, and an example of this would be that streaming a whole movie on YouTube for “The purposes of review” would not be considered a valid defence.

Parody is also another well-known defence. It means that if you are making a work that is meant to be based on or mock the other work for humour, they cannot claim you are breaching their copyright. This does not cover works that are so similar from the original that they cannot be differentiated, however. An issue with parody copyright however, is that it is subjective and affected by culture, so parody laws can vary greatly from country to country, or dependant on what religion or social norms are in the area.

As mentioned previously, education is one of the exemptions from copyright, though how much defence it will give can differ from country to country, however it’s not often in a business’s best interests to be chasing educational facilities for non-profit usages of their copyright, although colleges will often clamp down hard on those who use copyrighted material without referencing the author correctly, as this can be seen as plagiarism.
A useful exception to the copyright law is that it is legal to create altered versions for those less able to sense the creative work without the owners express permission. This means that braille or larger versions for those with vision difficulties can be created without a long legal process, meaning more people can have access to creative works.

Copyright limitations and prohibitions:

There are limits to copyright usages, however. They will not cover concepts and base technologies, as that is covered by patent law and the law for items such as the recognisable designs of cars are dictated by registered design. As previously mentioned, in the UK copyright cannot be bought, so it can be a limitation for businesses that would like to own intellectual property, instead having to buy rights or licenses to use that work, which can be problematic should there be issues with the author of the work.

Copyright permissions e-mail:

I found an image that I wished to use for my game media from a designer named “Sam Stringer”. In line with appropriate copyright laws (and because I was not able to exclude myself under any reasonable exemptions), I e-mailed him to gain permission to use his creative work. The E-mail I sent is shown below.

As can be seen, I sent a polite and professional e-mail to ask for permission, but unfortunately received the reply seen below, which declined my enquiry about permission to use the image. Under copyright law, I am now unable to use the image.

Bibliography:

http://www.copyright.com/content/cc3/en/toolbar/education/get-the-facts/global_copyright.html