Hear me, see me
Sounds and visuals can bring a business to life, as long as they are cleared for use, says copyright specialist Naomi Korn
You might think copyright is just for the artistic elite. Wrong. It is alive in any enterprise and can have a powerful kick.
Playing the radio at work? Taking copies of a newspaper article? Using photos off the web? Playing snatches of music? Downloading tools? Unless it is for personal use, you are going to need permission in each case.
Copyright casts a wide net into which it can be easy to drift. Take the public-sector body that led a campaign for two years with an image on which it had failed to secure permission. It had to pay £300 for use and £700 in damages, as well as £1,000 in legal fees. In a business context, you could easily treble these numbers. The more commercial the use and the greater the audience, the heavier the penalty you face.
Copyright is no mystery. You just have to make sure that you think about it early enough. Time and again, however, you see enterprises who have found a powerful image to put at the centre of their marketing communications. Right at the end, they remember copyright and face a painful decision. Either pay whatever the owner wants or scrap the campaign.
A broad right
Enterprises rarely appreciate how broad copyright is. It covers all the content-rich media in which we all operate, including the web. Ideas are not protected in themselves, but in how they are fixed in a format that can be seen, heard or felt.
The
onus is on you to ask if you want to use a photo, a song or a piece of software. You might see a copyright
symbol ©
The collecting societies are a good place to search for the owners. They administer different types of copyright, such as the Performing Rights Society for musicians and the Design and Artists Copyright Society for artists, designers and photographers. Alternatively, you could ask the website where you found a piece of content.
If all else fails, you can put up a disclaimer saying that all reasonable efforts have been made to find an owner, but you will still be in breach of copyright. It will be up to you to take an informed and proportionate decision on the risks of going ahead.
Permissions
Once you have found the owner, you can ask for different sorts of permission, such as one-off use, or use for a period of time, or in a particular country. Or it could be a blanket right for different uses in various formats. Owners are generally happy to agree a discount for one big request.
If the copyright holder is someone you know, you can probably rely on an e-mail to agree terms. If it is someone new to you, then you will probably ask for a contract so you can be sure that you have freedom of use.
Third-party content
When you bring in someone to create content for you, make sure you are clear about where you stand on the rights. If a photographer takes pictures for you, you may have to pay to re-use any images, unless you agree otherwise. Similarly, a designer will own the rights in your website, unless they are specifically assigned to you or grant you specific permission.
You want to use freely what they have produced for you, so you need the rights. You might even consider taking ownerships of the rights to protect an asset, such as your brand, so it cannot be re-used elsewhere without your permission.
Whatever you decide, always check whether your designer has cleared the rights in any music or images that appear on your website. Otherwise, it will be you that will be liable if they are being published without permission.
Practical Copyright by Naomi Korn is being published by Collections Trust in January 2010. Find details on the Collections Trust website
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Naomi Korn’s website .
Naomi Korn’s checklist for users of copyright
- Remember digital content is protected by copyright into the same way as print.
- Always check terms and conditions for any content you want to use.
- If there are no terms and conditions or no copyright symbol, it does not mean that you can freely use it. Someone somewhere will own the rights.
- If you cannot find the rights holders or they are unknown, it does not mean you can freely use the work. Take an informed and proportionate view of the risks before using it. Or use something else.
- Even if you carry out reasonable searches to find the owners, then you use a disclaimer, it will still be an infringement of copyright.
- Make sure all the direct and indirect uses to which you intend to put the copyright are consistent with the licence you negotiate. If not, you will need to seek extra permission.
- Remember if you wish to manipulate or alter any content, you need to seek permission.
- There are a number of free sources of content, but you must read the small print in any conditions to make sure it as good as it sounds.
- If it all goes wrong, do not panic. Think clearly about your approach. Seek legal advice if necessary and be prepared to pay for uses that are not legitimate.