What's the Right Copyright?

CIU111- Copyright and Contracts

In the lecture “Copyright and Contracts”, a very interesting topic on protecting the rights of a creative work was taught (SAE, 2018). There is a more personal element attached to a creative work than a normal work. Hence, it needs to be respected through laws or contracts.

(The AIA Trust, 2018)

In my years of producing creative media, I have never taken copyrights into a serious account. I would take ideas from existing artwork and implement them into my own or reproduce some artwork for practice. I only assumed copyright was meant for the more professional work put out there. Surprisingly though, a copyright is gained immediately after the release of any creative work (Hill, n.d., p.1). However, what got me thinking was: to what extent is it considered an infringement of copyright?

In terms of fan or consumer exploitation of media, there seems to have been a lot of debatable cases. Firstly, a Japanese Manga Scanlation in 2009 was reported when fans scanned, translated and released the Manga collection for free over the internet in various languages (Lee, 2009, p.1011).

Secondly, a lot of YouTube accounts post videos based on creative works without approval of their original creators. YouTube has a fair-use policy that have guidelines dealing with the four factors of fair use. Often, these accounts address the policy very briefly in the description in order to avoid their videos from being taken down by YouTube.

Donald Duck meets Glenn Beck in Right Wing Radio Duck is a “re-imagined Donald Duck cartoon remix constructed using 50 classic Walt Disney animated shorts from the 1930s through 1960s” with “short excerpts from different source materials” that proves as an excellent example for the fair-use policy (Pop, 2010; YouTube, 2018).

Thirdly, if you ever wonder how fan-sites generate revenue from posting copyrighted content, it is because the policy allows for this to happen under the Fair Use Exception in the Copyright Acts. “Commercial Fan accounts that offer criticism, commentary and creative works” are appreciated more than non-profit accounts who “merely repost original work”, because it accounts for transformation of the original piece (Whaley, 2003, p.7).

Therefore, copyright infringement is exempted on the grounds of fair use. Copying or using copyrighted material is a violation of the acts and can account for serious damages. I am glad CIU has informed us about the legal formalities that exist in the industry, so as to avoid problems in our future career.

References:

Hill, C. (n.d.) How Long Does It Take For Your Work to get Copyrighted? Retrieved from https://info.legalzoom.com/long-work-copyrighted-23878.html

Lee, H. K. (2009 November 11). Between Fan Culture and Copyright infringement: manga scanlation. Media, Culture & Society, 31(6), pp.1011-1022. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443709344251

Pop Culture Detective (2010, October 2). Donald Duck meets Glenn Beck in Right Wing Radio Duck [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfuwNU0jsk0&feature=youtu.be

SAE Creative Institute (2018). Week 5 CIU111 – Copyrights and Contracts [pptx]. Retrieved from https://moodle-dubai.axis.navitas.com/mod/folder/view.php?id=36629

Stim, R. (n.d.) What is Fair Use? Retrieved from https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/what-is-fair-use/

The AIA Trust (2018). Blurring the Legal Concept of Intellectual Property [image]. Retrieved from http://www.theaiatrust.com/intellectual-property/

Whaley, S. (2003, December 10). Analysis of Fair Use and fan Culture on the Internet. Retrieved from http://web.mit.edu/lawclub/www/Analysis%20of%20Fair%20Use%20and%20Fan%20Culture%20on%20the%20Internet.pdf

YouTube (2018). What is Fair use? Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/intl/en-GB/yt/about/copyright/fair-use/#yt-copyright-four-factors