Copyright is a fast growing law area, and the lengths that people are willing to go to protect their intellectual property are huge as the world makes technological advances in media.
All work an individual produces belongs to the individual until they sell the results and rights of the work to another.
Intellectual property has as much copyright solidity as something produced by hand. When someone sells their property, there are differences between the two types, as property produced by hand's rights is likely to be sold of completely whereas intellectual property is far more likely to be licenced in exchange for payment, with the original creator still holding ownership; this is particularly true for freelance media work.
There is no Copyright for ideas. One can only claim copyright breach when there is already clear evidence of an idea. If one wishes copyright protection then there property must be of substancial detail and not infringe on any copyright itself (i.e. be original).
Lifting. There is no copyright in the facts of a news story, but everything about the news story is copyrighted... even down to the very words the reporter uses. Any interview or quotes in a story is copyrighted, but the barebones and facts of a story is free from copyright issues.
Fair Dealing. Through fair dealing, copyrighted material can be used in the following ways: Private study purposes
Performance, copies or lending for educational purposes
News reports
Lending by libraries
Official proceedings
"Time shifting" for convenience
Producing a personal back-up
Playing a recording for a non-profit organisation
Fair Dealing allows wider reporting of stories in the public interest, criticism and review of coypright material, broadcast of news obits of film stars can use famous movie clips for free. Photographs, however, are NOT subject to fair dealing.
The best defense of breach of copyright is that one can lift quotes etc from a publication through fair dealing if it is in the public interest. However, the extracted copyright material must be acknowledged (that it is the work of somebody else) by it's extractor and certainly not be passed off as their own work. One does not have to specify where the source was from exactly, i.e. if the Daily Mail revealed some info, it could be said that 'a newspaper revealed', but one should never pass the work off as their own. By doing this malice can also be avoided if the 'news exclusive' transpires to be of a malicious nature.
The length of time property has copyright protection is very peculiar. The 1998 statute states that art work, music scores, drama, film etc is free from copyright 70 years after the death of the particular author/performer. And for music, sound, and broadcasts, there is no copyright after 50 years.
Recently the government has proposed to lower the restrictions on 'intellectual property' to that of the US. The lowering of restrictions, it is argued, is to help economic stimulus and stop creativity being impinged and restricted. The business and economic argument for lowering current UK copyright law is that there is a neccesity for creative people to take already existing concepts and rework or better them for greater creative purposes and economic stimulus.
David Cameron commented that a huge company such as Google would have been unable to originate from the UK with the current restrictions the way they are. If more relaxed copyright laws come to fruition then technological businesses will benefit from a clearer vision and certainty as to what can be patented.
Hopefully, more relaxed copyright laws will be met in the UK, which will bring both economic and creative advantages.
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