Law Lecture #5

Copyright

Copyright is an ongoing issue for not only journalists but also the public. When producing WINOL, many of us found the issues with copyright, especially in the feature industry. I was editor of our own fashion magazine, Absolutely. Ultimately, high end fashion magazines have the money to either pay for stunning photography to appear in their pages or if not, create their own with models, stylists, artists and sets. Unfortunately, with no budget it became an issue to try and create/find the type of photography we wanted to show on our website. A saviour in many ways was flickr. By searching for an image such as 'catwalk' you could find images from people who allow you to take their images, under creative commons and being free of copyright. If the image is under creative commons, most of the time the owner will state whether you can change the image, or whether you must attribute them when using the image.

In summary, copyright protects other peoples collective content. 
If you are using other peoples material you must attribute them. We can use the material under certain circumstances. 

There are particular rules that journalists must follow in regards to what they can take or 'lift' from other people's articles. This does not mean copying word for word of someones article, but more using quotes as long as we attribute what publication the quote is from. Journalists must respect copyright laws and understand the risks we face when using someone else's work. 

When talking about broadcasting, an exemption is covering a current news event. 

Because it’s a news event, we can use clips that are relevant to the time. i.e. the death of Shirley Temple in previous weeks. Many news broadcasters all use the same clips of the famous person. Although we do not have the copyright for these clips of this persons career, due to it being relevant to her death at this time, it’s our get out of jail free card. 

Copyright protects intellectual property.

What’s protected?
- Books, films, music, photographs - pretty much everything the product of original work
Things that aren’t protected are undeveloped ideas, slogans, catchphrases. 

Practical reasons for caring
Getting it wrong will cost you;

• Money
• Embarrassment and stress

We call it ‘fair dealing’
For the purpose of ‘reporting current events’ we can;
- Lift thrust of stories and quotes from rivals

• Must be attributed
• In the public interest
• Usage must be ‘fair’ 

Fair dealing relates to the idea that the content being used is for the purpose of reporting the current news event. However it must still be in the public interest. 

What fair dealing allows

• Wider reporting of stories in public interest
• Criticism and review of copyright material
• Broadcast news obits of film stars can use famous movie clips for free
• BUT photographs are never subject to fair dealing

Danger areas

• The internet - youtube, facebook etc
• Sports coverage - news access rights. Massive contract deals on who can cover what. For example, a story around a racing driver, your the BBC and that year you don’t have the rights to Formula 1 so you can’t show it. Rugby world cup win, BBC don’t have the rights to that so if they cover it they use stills and commentary rather than actual footage. 
• Photographs and film archive
  
  News access rights agreement  - we can only show the action a certain number of times in 24 hours. This relates to sport. You can’t show the goal being scored too many times in 24 hours. You have to check with sports producers about running sports stories and what times etc.
  

Points to remember

• Recognise copyright issues early
• Contracting rights holders takes time
• Tell others if you have copyright cleared
• Don’t lift material without reference up