Copyright
Copyright should be incredibly important to us as journalists, it protects our work and without it the journalism business could not survive. With this in mind it is important to respect copyright laws and other journalists work. Copyright is a property right in law and controls who can copy work created by artistic and intellectual endeavour. Copyright protects our intellectual property; which is defined as the products of skill, creativity, labour or time. Protection under copyright of intellectual property means we own things we create in the same way you own physical belongings.
What Does Copyright Protect?
Original literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works – this includes journalistic articles, poems, lyrics, books, plays, scripts, photographs, websites and paintings amongst many others. Texts can be handwritten, printed or online, they are all covered!
Sound recordings, films or broadcasts – includes files and CDs of music, home and cinema movies, TV and radio output
Typographical arrangements of published editions
Any unauthorised copying of the above material is a criminal offence, not only this but it damages your standing as a capable journalist. It is also important to remember that some of the above material is covered by more than one type of copyright, for example a film will have copyright on the script, footage and music.
The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
The 1988 act prohibits copying copyrighted material without permission; this includes material from the internet thanks to recent updates to the act. Under the 1988 act the owner of copyright is the ‘first owner’. The first owner of a piece of intellectual work is the author or artist for example the photographer owns the photo they have taken. The first owner has the copyright unless they agree to assign the copyright to another party; in this case the assigned party has the right to make copies of the work.
In accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 the owner of copyright has the right to:
Reproduce and make copies of the work
Rent the work
Issue copies of the work
Perform, show or play the work in a public place
Make an adaptation of the work
Communicate work the to the public
In order to undertake any of the above activities you must have the permission of the copyright holder, if you do not then you could be charged for infringement of copyright. Claimants could sue you for damages and loss of earnings.
Fair Dealing
There are occasions when the 1988 act allows us to lawfully use copyrighted material; this is known as fair dealing. Under section 30 of the 1988 act publication of work protected by copyright is allowed for the purpose of reporting current events, for the purpose of criticism or review and finally for the purpose of research or study. Fair dealing can only be used as long as:
The publisher does not take unfair commercial advantage of the copyright owner by excessive publication of copyrighted work
Work is attributed to the copyright owner
Copyrighted material is published in the public interest
An example of fair dealing is use of archive footage when a film or music star dies; use of the copyrighted material such as film clips is covered by fair dealing. Photographs are specifically excluded from fair dealing and can never be used without the copyright owner; this is to protect the photographer’s income.
Potential danger areas
The internet is not free from copyright; almost everything on the internet is subject to copyright. For example YouTube video are subject to copyright, just because material on the internet is not physical you cannot freely lift material from it. Sport is another big danger area, especially for broadcasters. The rights to show sport pictures are incredibly complex and worth a lot of money, this means the stakes are high if you were to get it wrong! Another potential danger is the use of library pictures, just because material is in your library archive it does not necessarily mean you are free to use it. If you are ever in doubt refer up, never just lift material as it’s more than likely it is copyrighted.
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