Law Lecture - Copyright

Copyright was first introduced after the birth of the printing press. This is pretty much a simple aspect of law, insofar as at its basic level it means that if you wrote it, then it’s yours; for example an article. The same applies to any pictures you take, poems you write, drawings you do and so on! Copyright is a property protection law that keeps in check how your own work or images are used by others. It protects a number of things; books, images, film and TV broadcasts and so on, anything that you've done yourself is rightfully and lawfully yours, so if someone is trying to pass off their work as your own then boom you can pounce if you can provide and show that you are the original creator of it.

However, you are allowed to 'license' your pictures, articles on to people who ask you to use them, commonly this happens with pictures - people will usually email the owner of a picture to ask if that they are allowed to use them, for example, in their blogs and this is absolutely fine so long as you stick to their terms - for example crediting the owner and source of the photograph.

The confirmation gained through the email is effectively solid, written consent from the owner that you're allowed to use their picture - you must make sure that they give the confirmation in the form of an email, or at least something substantial that will hold up in court if they decide to sue you for breaching copyright law. Basically, don’t steal other people's work, all right, because that’s plagiarism.
The length of copyright does depend on the material. For example musical works are under the copyright of the artist, so long as that artist lives. The copyright then lasts seventy years

Fair Dealing: Fair dealing is a beautiful thing - it allows you to use copyrighted material for free! This can also be referred to as 'lifting'. This means that factual stories in the news can be used, insofar as 'lifting' a quote or a story from another newspaper is allowed - so long as you credit the person who originally took the picture, wrote the quote and so on, because otherwise it seems like you're trying to pass off the quote as if you're the one who collected it. This is all upheld in the Copyright Act of 1976.

Fair dealing can have a defence in news, insofar as lets say a famous actor or musician dies - you would be writing an obituary or be doing a tribute - you can say that since it is relevant to tell the story you need to use footage from the past or from their most recent film and that covers you just fine; because it is warranted, however you must still remember to always credit the owner, otherwise it's like you're saying you filmed it yourself and that it's your footage. It's important to note that when using footage, you're only allowed to use around 6 seconds or so of it, something that is not deemed excessive because otherwise its like rubbing it in.

Second defence for fair dealing; if you're doing a film review then you're welcome to use any footage from whatever it is you are reviewing, this is because it's being used to illustrate and show off the film; as always credit the source and make sure its not a huge amount, like you won't be able to use 3 minutes of it.