Copyright: Creative Commons

The following post is provided as guidelines for using works for Canadian educational purposes; not intended to constitute legal advice.

What are trademarks? Patents?

Trademark protects an identity or brand – think visual. Includes company names, logos, slogans, and designs used to identify and distinguish a company’s goods in its business trade. The trademark can be a word, sign, symbol, or design that defines the trademark owner.

A patent protects a method or design – think a thing, methods, processes such as computer algorithm, a chemical process primarily. A patent or invention must be completely new; nothing like it must exist before. Typically functional. A patent protects the idea—not the content itself

Copyrights?

A friend of mine had done some technical drawings for a computer company. It was a signed contract, and he posted these drawings on his business website. Another company, let’s call them ABC company placed these same drawings on their website but no attribution or credit that he did the illustrations. My friend felt ABC company who is posting them is claiming that they did the pictures. Basically misrepresentation. He told ABC company to take them down. ABC company refused and ignored his emails and calls. Instead, a lawyer was involved, and soon after, the work was taken down from the website.

My friend’s saving grace was that he build metadata into the protected images of his work.

Artists Work

If photographers, artists or musicians who take photos, do illustrations or drawings, create songs and post it online, it’s free for anyone to use for commercial use? The moment you capture that image, create a drawing or song, the copyright belongs to you. Copyright infringement occurs when a picture, music or illustration is used without permission or license from the person who created it. 

The only exception to this is when you have a specific legal arrangement to do the work for somebody else (under a work for hire arrangement for example), but this must exist in advance, or else a legally binding document must be created that transfers the copyright from the one who created it.

What is copyright?

The exclusive right to allow others to publish, adapt, reproduce, and to perform in public a literary or artistic work, for any purpose.

Huh? Copyright is a term we are all familiar with, but what does it really mean?

Simply put, it’s the right to (1) copy, and (2) prevent others from copying work without permission

Copyright applies to all original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works, such as books, plays, poems, films, musical scores, sculptures, architectural design, computer code/programs, and more.

• Copyright protects the “Authorship” such as a document, book, film and music
• Protects the Content, not the idea, typically it is non-functional.

Copyright is Automatic

Copyright exists as soon as a work is fixed (in digital or analog format)

• Ex. (1) Analog – As soon as the work is written down on a piece of paper it is protected by copyright (could range from handwritten lecture notes to a personal diary)
• Ex. (2) Digital – As soon as a work is saved to a computer hard drive it is considered fixed and is protected by copyright
• Ex. (3) Photograph – Once a photograph is taken, it is considered fixed and is covered by copyright (digital or analog)

Length of Copyright

• Life+50 rule
• Life+70 (sound recordings)
• Public domain
• Length of copyright – United States

Canada copyright lasts for the life of the creator +50 years (known as the ‘life+50’ rule)

• Ex. If an author dies in February of 1972, their work enters the public domain on December 31st, 2022

In 2012, the copyright term of sound recordings was extended to the life of the creator +70 years (life+70). Once copyright expires, works enter the public domain where they can be used without payment or permission from the copyright owner.

In the US, the term of copyright is the life of a creator +70 years. This means that work might enter the public domain in Canada, but still, be protected by copyright in the US (called ‘national treatment’ – discussed below)

Poor Man Copyright?

There used to be an urban myth that if you mail yourself a copy of the work that you created this is a form of copyright registration… True or False?

If you said true, you are definitely incorrect. It’s actually false.

• It may help to prove the date of authorship but it’s not reliable and it will not give you copyright protection
• Example: I could mail myself an envelope. I won’t seal the envelope, and the post office would postmark the envelope and mail the envelope back to me. Maybe a songwriter creates a song. I, in turn, record the same lyrics and type this all out. I put this in the envelope that was unsealed, put it in the envelope and seal it. When we go to court, the judge would see that yes, this recording was created before they did. Is this reliable information? Hmmm…

Is copyright sometimes hard to prove?

Flickr and Behance use Creative Commons, a license on copyright. What are Creative Commons? Creative Commons helps you legally share your knowledge and creativity to build a more equitable, accessible, and innovative world. We unlock the full potential of the internet to drive a new era of development, growth and productivity. With a network of staff, board, and affiliates around the world, Creative Commons provides free, easy-to-use copyright licenses to make a simple and standardized way to give the public permission to share and use your creative work–on conditions of your choice (Creative Commons, para. 1-2).

Creative Commons is an alternative form of copyright protection

• Allows creator to retain selected rights, forego others
• The basic requirement is attribution
• Also suitable for those seeking a commercial outlet for their works

Creative Commons is an internationally recognized set of licenses.

There are six main licenses offered when you choose to publish your work with a Creative Commons license. They are listed here starting with the most accommodating license type and ending with the most restrictive license type.

The following information on the next few pages have been adopted from the Creative Commons website

Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

• This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.

Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)

• This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to “copyleft” free and open-source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use. This is the license used by Wikipedia and is recommended for materials that would benefit from incorporating content from Wikipedia and similarly licensed projects.

Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0)

• This license allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you.

Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

• This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

• This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-BC-ND 4.0)

• This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, only allowing others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.

How would you protect yourself if you did use a copyright license? One could sue a company like that if you have a lot of money. One could also register their photo for copyright, but being a photographer, that would be costly. To register your copyright, costs are between $50 to $65 Canadian, for the US, it’s $45+.

What are other ways that show evidence of copyright ownership?

The following are standard practices, but not entirely useful sometimes:

• Provide the original file as well as the date the image was captured and published is usually sufficient evidence of copyright ownership.
• Add copyright information to their metadata. You could monitor your work online because of the metadata in your images.
• Use digital signatures
• Using hidden foreground layers
• Display clear copyright notices around your work. © Your Name Year.  (© Michael Chow 2019)
  
• Use watermarks on your images. If you place your watermark along the edges of the work, they can be easily cropped off. If you put the watermark right in the middle of the image, chances are the image won’t be used, because it would be time-consuming to retouch the image. 

*Note: The issue with watermarking the work is when showing your work to potential clients, family or friends, they have this big watermark in the image. It can be distracting, and some may be turned off on it. A catch-22 scenario I guess.  

If the work is posted online, maybe for a blog or website, you could email a takedown notice directly to the host of the site, or the person managing the site. They may or not. Maybe you have a friend or family member who can draft a letter with their lawyer’s business and that could scare them off too without going to court. And if not, well, the lawyer has already drafted a letter! 

Did Pitbull copy the riff from A-Ha?

A riff is a short repeated phrase in popular music and jazz, typically used as an introduction or refrain in a song.

A-Ha – Take on Me vs Pitbull ft. Christina Aguilera – Feel the Moment

• A-Ha – Take on Me (play at 19 seconds to 35 seconds on the timeline for riff)
• Pitbull – Feel the Music (42 seconds to 68 seconds on timeline for riff)

This is not a cover song.

• They simply sampled parts of the main melody but not the entire thing
• They did not sing the same lyrics nor did they give the song the same title, the name of the song is called ‘Feel The Moment’
• And sampling melodies from earlier songs is quite a common thing since 2000+.
• Sometimes, it’s based on length, complexity and duration

At 56 seconds Pit Bull pays a tribute to A-Ha by jumping out of the cartoon!

Copyright is a Bundle of Rights

When we think of copyright, we usually talk about the owner’s rights

• It’s important to note that the creator of a copyrighted work and the owner might be two different people (ie. Employee = creator, employer = owner)

Copyright should not be seen as one single right but as a bundle of rights. Some of these rights belong to the owner of the copyright and some belong to the user

Copyright is a balance between the owner’s rights and user’s rights

• Owner’s rights are in place to protect their work
• User’s rights allow users to benefit from intellection property being created

Marvin Gaye vs Pharell and Robin

Marvin Gaye – Got to Give It Up vs Pharell and Robin Thicke (NSFW) – Blurred Lines

Did Pharell and Robin Thicke copy the groove from Marvin Gaye? A court settlement of $5.3 million was the damages that Pharell and Robin Thicke must pay to the estate of Marvin Gaye (his three children)

This is sorta changes things for other artists:

• Artists might consider erring on the side of caution and extreme due diligence when it comes to the forces that lead to a song or beat creation
• It won’t be enough to just say that someone inspired a groove
• Grooves must be acknowledged on paper, permissions asked and licensing granted before the song gets published
• If the grooves are too similar, it could be considered groove theft

Fair Dealing (Fair Use)

An exception in the copyright act and allows you to use other’s people copyright-protected material. More or less, this allows users to copy short citations of copyright-protected work for one of eight purposes:

• Research
• Private study
• Criticism
• Review
• News reporting
• Parody
• Satire
• Education

For example, let’s go back to music samples. Michael Jackson vs Weird Al Yankovic: Is this an example of Fair Use?

Michael Jackson – Beat It vs Weird Al Yankovic – Eat It

What does this mean for education?

Several colleges, universities and schools have copyright usage on their website. Please see your school for more information. Of the three schools I work at, several guidelines, these three have the following that seems to be okay to use including:

• Up to 10% of a copyright-protected work
• One chapter from a book
• A single article from a periodical/journal

E-resource Licenses

Colleges and universities subscribe to many databases, e-journals, and e-book collections

• Governed by license agreements (contracts) with content providers
• Contracts trump fair dealing and other user rights in the Copyright Act
• Nearly all permit linking in learning management systems
• Again, consult the school for terms of use 

Students and Copyrighted Works

Students can use the same educational exceptions as faculty

IMPORTANT: if students are building a portfolio to use outside of education, educational exceptions no longer apply once they are no longer a student

– ie. Technical Design Program

Finding Images/Videos to Use

Google: Under ‘Settings’, ‘Advanced Search’ you can filter by ‘Usage Rights’ to only show search results published under an open license. For example “free to use share or modify”

Unsplash: All photos can be used for free, even for commercial purposes.

Pexel or Pixabay: All photos can be used for free, even for commercial purposes

Wikimedia Commons: A collection of public domain and freely-licensed educational media content (images, sound and video clips). For permissions info, see the Reuse guide.

Coverr: Download royalty-free video footage for your website or any project. No attribution required.

Alternatives to Using Copyrighted Work

BCcampus’ Open Education Project – Includes 260+ textbooks (many faculty reviewed) for instructors to adopt and adapt

Open Educational Resources (OER)

• Teaching, learning, and research resources with flexible licenses that permit free use and repurposing by others.
• You can reuse and adapt these resources to fit your specific needs, without asking permission from the copyright owner

References:

(n.d.). What we do. Retrieved from https://creativecommons.org/about