Copyright

a.k.a. Intellectual Property Rights

 

Caution

This area of law gets very technical very quickly.

 

L. Ray Patterson, law professor at the University of Georgia, and the author of a book on the history of copyright,:

“Most people do not realize the extent to which copyright pervades their lives. They get their education from copyrighted books, they get their news from copyrighted papers and TV programs, they get their jobs from copyrighted want ads, they get their entertainment from copyrighted music and motion pictures -- every aspect of life is affected by the law of copyright.”

 

Agenda

Introduction

Aim of Copyright

What is Copyright

®  Who owns

®  Rights under Copyright

®  Exemptions to the Rights

®  Remedies

Managing Rights

Trends

 

Overview of Copyright:

Authors (copyright holders) have certain exclusive rights that are subject to numerous exceptions of fair use

·   Originally—right to reproduce

·   Seen as incorporeal vs corporeal/real estate

·   Based mostly on written law (common law copyright is unclear beyond the right to prevent unauthorised copying)

·   Other IPR—trademarks, service marks, patents, confidential information, trade secrets

 

Key Concept 1:

A copyright is a bundle of rights, NOT JUST ONE RIGHT, in intellectual property.

 

Aims of Copyright:

At one time, a right to make copies

·     Star Chamber Decree of 1556--Charter of the Stationers’ Company

·    Control of printing press technology

·    Censorship

·    Argument that authors should have less protection to make them produce more

Change

·     Statute of Anne 1709
“An Act for the Encouragement of Learning by vesting the Copies of printed Books in the Authors or Purchasers of such Copies during the Times herein mentioned.”

·    Expansion of copyright 1814 to 1988

 

Aims of Copyright Today:

·     Protect author's rights

·     Encourage creativity in society ie societal, not individual, good

·     To balance interests of society and creator of works. (US constitution: “to promote science and the useful arts”.)

 

Article 27 Universal Declaration of Human Rights

(1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.

(2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

 

What Is Copyright?

Protection of  forms of expression (not ideas) of  original (low level of originality) literary works (not machines, processes) for a duration.

®  Possible to have coincidentally identical materials

®  Arises automatically. No need to claim copyright or register.

 

Copyright Does Not Protect

®Ideas

®Facts

®Short phrases

®  Titles

®  Names

®Blank forms

Key Concept 2:

Confers near-monopoly right to reproduce and distribute.

 

Who Owns The Copyright

®The author

®The employer of the author

Caveat: If you hire someone to do a website, the rights belong to the designer automatically, unless stated otherwise.

Question: Who owns the right to your FYP?

 

Rights—Economic Rights:

®     Reproductive right: the right to reproduce the work in copies;

®     Adaptative right: the right to produce derivative works based on the copyrighted work;

®     Distribution right: the right to distribute copies of the work; (not absolute in Singapore)

®     Performance right: the right to perform the copyrighted work publicly;

®     Display right: the right to display the copyrighted work publicly.

 

Rights—Moral Rights:

Rights of personality; harder to assign; in UK, thought you could sue if reputation is damaged or for passing off

®     Attribution right (sometimes called the paternity right): the right of the author to claim authorship of the work and to prevent the use of his or her name as the author of a work he or she did not create; S.188

®     Integrity right: the right of an author to prevent the use of his or her name as the author of a distorted version of the work, to prevent intentional distortion of the work, and to prevent destruction of the work. S.189

®     Right of disclosure (to withhold work from publication)

 

Subsidiary Rights

®     First serial: the right to publish for the first time a work in a periodical or newspaper.

®     Second and subsequent serial: the right to publish a work in successive issues of a periodical or newspaper following publication of the work. 

®     Digest: the right to publish an abridgement of the work in a single issue of a periodical or newspaper.

®     Book condensation: the right to publish a shortened form of the work in volume form. 

®     Single issue ("one-shot"): the right to publish the complete work in a single issue of a periodical or newspaper. 

®     Dramatic/Performing: the right to publish a stage adaptation of the work; the right to perform in public a published or unpublished stage adaptation of the work.

®     Broadcasting/television. (a) straight reading: the right to give straight readings of the work on radio/television. (b) dramatic adaptation: the right to adapt the work into a radio/television script and to perform and broadcast the script by means of radio/television. 

®     Translation 

®     Anthology and quotation

®     Mechanical reproduction: the right to reproduce here by any technological means in existence or yet to come.

®     Merchandising:

®     Strip cartoon ("picturisation”): 

 

Remedies

®  Injunctions—court sanctioned document that stops a party from performing certain acts

®  Damages/Flagrant (Punitive) Damages

®  Accounting for Profits

®  Delivery of Infringing Copies

®  (Penal Code)

 

When Can You Copy:
Fair Dealing

®  Small amount of material with credits

®  Study, criticism, reporting of current event

®  Should not deprive copyright holder of financial gain

®  Home-taping of broadcast programmes

®  Libraries and Educational Institutions

 

Online Copyright Issues

®Ease of private copying

®  Napster, Gnutella

®Rise of new reproduction technologies

®Transient copies – cache, etc

®  Resolved

Multimedia Rights

 

 

Common Copyright Mistakes

v        If I use a picture from the Straits Times, it is ok if I acknowledge that the picture came from the Straits Times.

v        If I take a picture, it means I can use it anyway I want.

 

Managing Copyright

Questions to ask

1. Is the material protected by copyright?

2. Is there a defence against infringement?

3. Who controls it?

4. How best to clear it?

5. What rights: Economic/Moral

6. How to divide rights:

Territory

Media

How to Buy

1. Buy-outs—one-off payments

2. Residuals—percentage of rights holder’s fee

3. Royalties—percentage of sale price or net income

4. Licences—buy for a limited use

 

Trends

®WIPO

®Extension of copyright

®Tendency to use contract law

 

Extension of IPR

®Shrinkwrap licences—in effect a contract. Norton Utilities says you must destroy prior version of the software. Imagine doing that to a book.

®Transmission of sports results (not IPR)

®No Electronic Theft Act in US digital copyright act

 

Extension of IPR—Photographer Restriction Form

From:Spice Girls Limited

66-68 Bell Street

London NW1 6SP

DATE:   _____XXXXX______ 1998

TO/OUTLET: ____XXXXXX_______

1)You hereby assign to us all copyright in the Photographs through-out the world for the full period of copyright and any extensions and renewals;

. . .

5)You will undertake, at our request and expense, to do all necessary to confirm our title to the copyright in the Photographs;

6)You will deliver to us all prints, negatives and transparencies and any copies, in any format, of the Photographs and we shall have the right to use any of the Photographs for any purpose we consider appropriate;

 

Even Teletubbies