Understand your Rights with Copyright Infringement
Copyright infringement is when a person reproduce, publically display and distribute someone else work without permission from the owner. Bottom line, when you take something that doesn’t belong to you simply put, it’s stealing! That’s how you know that you’ve broken the copyright law. Most people don’t realize that they are breaking the law everyday just by downloading & uploading music, movies, sharing photos, video clips, copying, ripping and burning CD’s & DVD’s. Some have questioned whether it’s considered copyright infringement if not done for a profit.
Think you’re saving money? Think again, copyright Infringement cost a whole lot more. (c) 2013 Photo by D. Garvin
How do you know when you’re breaking the law?
The copyright infringement law is so complex, that it can make it hard not to infringe on some people’s legal rights. Being new to blogging or simply a part of the social networking community makes it difficult for the average person to realize that they’re breaking the law because it seems everyone’s online doing it. Here are a few tips to avoid copyright infringement on social media.
If you don’t know what the law entails before you break it, then you will quickly learn it once they slap that lawsuit on you. Take casual blogger Roni Loren, she tells her story on her blog site about being new to blogging and being sued for copyright infringement. She had a photo on her page that was not attributed and according to Loren, she didn’t know the rules and did what most people she saw do. She assumed that under the Fair Use standard, that it was OK not attribute. She didn’t know and unfortunately learned the hard way.
Breaking the law comes with a price
Photos by D. Garvin (c) 2013
According to eonline, the children of the late musician David Pryor recently filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Kanye West for millions, after sampling their father’s song (Gold Digger) without getting consent. Pryor passed in 2006, but his children Trena and Lorenzo ascertained that their father’s work has been sampled numerous times and by various artists. However, they made it clear to all record companies involved that if they don’t stop exploiting their dad’s song (BusStop) without requesting permission, will be next in line for a lawsuit.
OntheFlipSideofCopyrightInfringement
Former Film Student Pattie Clark was director on a class film that was to be shot for their final project, but to her surprise several months down the line, found out that part of their story had been copied, re-shot, and uploaded to YouTube, with the exact same storyline and Title. Because the script was never copyrighted and protected, all rights were lost. “Now that’s a lesson well learned on copyrighting. Wish I knew to do it sooner.” Chuckling, Clark says “Take it from me, even if you’re still in school protect your work and get it copyrighted.” “Don’t let all of your hard work get snatch right out from under you.”
According to PCMag, in August 2012, Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that linking & embedding video is not considered copyright infringement. Posner explains in great length how linking and embedding works and they that watch the videos are not violating copyright infringement law, nor are they who are embedding & linking violating the law. However, they who are uploading copyright infringing videos are in violation.
Embedding & Linking is no longer considered copyright infringement (c) 2013 Photo by D. Garvin