A lawyer at my workplace recently gave an hour long session on copyrights and copyright clearing houses. I thought I’d share the information for anyone who is interested.
First, the definition of copyright. You’d think it was fairly simple, and it is. Basically, a copyright is applied to any work (published or unpublished) that exists in a tangible format. For instance, we have movies, TV shows, books and CDs that can be bought at the store. Fairly obvious, this one. Not so obvious is the idea that if you record yourself singing in the shower or write a poem, even if no one else ever sees it, it’s considered copyrighted by you.
Cool! Right? So, I asked the question about Public Domain. There is a common misconception that anything published on the internet is considered PD. In fact, I even bought into it. So, my fanfic on Fanfic.Net is PD, right? Not really. Public Domain is when something falls out of copyright. Not when you put it up on the internet.
So that You-Tube flick of a guy jumping burning barrels on his skateboard? Copyrighted. By him. If you want to distribute it, use it for a presentation in a company meeting, etc., you must get his permission. Usually permission consists of paying a fee, but if you can get written permissions without paying a fee, that’s even better. But you’d best make sure the permission is written so he can’t come back and sue you later for copyright infringement. In fact, that’s why so many You-Tube videos are getting dinged lately, because they are stealing copyright by posting movie clips or songs that belong to other people and doing it in such a way as it violates the Fair Use law.
Yeah. I’ll get into Fair Use law on another post. But if you want more general information on copyright itself, visit http://www.copyright.gov/. I should mention, this is United States copyright law I’m talking about. Not international or UK or European, etc. Jurisdiction does make a difference as each country has its own version.
Anyway, on to the interesting things. The U.S. government put into law a recommendation that a copyright clearing house should be created as a go-between for people who own copyrights and people who want to license copyrights. Basically, these clearing houses do a mass negotiation for the rights to use certain copyrights, then charge a fee to the people seeking those rights. The clearing houses maintain a catalog of things they have negotiated for (which is by no means 100% of all the copyrights).
You can pay an annual fee or a per use fee to obtain these copyright licenses, but when you do, you’d best verify the terms of the agreement. Different licenses give different rights and just because you have a license to play Sting’s music doesn’t mean you can use his songs with a power point presentation at your next business conference.
Interesting enough, playing music and synchronizing music to images are two completely different copyright licenses. If the music has a different lyricist from music writer from singer, then you’ve got 3 licenses to negotiate for instead of just one. And you must remember that parody doesn’t necessarily exempt you from copyright law. Look at what happened to Weird Al over "Amish Paradise."
Here are a couple of links for clearing houses.
The Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) covers publications, both paper & electronic, and can be found at: www.copyright.com. You can also call the CCC at 978-750-8400 if you have any questions on their catalog.
Broadcast Music, Inc (BMI) and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) cover music. BMI’s url is: www.bmi.com and ASCAP’s url is: www.ascap.com.
You can search these sites regardless of whether you have a license with them or not. They just tell you if they have the copyrighted object in their available licenses and then how much it’ll cost you to get it. As I said earlier, make sure to read all the fine print in the license for basic CYA.
Wow. Long blog. Well, I hope this helps anyone who’s looking for copyright information. Let me know if you want to see more information on this.
