legal quesiton regarding music in your videos

[K. Forman]

X amount of seconds of a song, are licensed as "needle drop" use. This is still someone elses property. It is still illegal to use without definitive license agreement. Whether it is for home use, or public broadcast. That is right, I-L-L-E-G-A-L. You are just not likely to get busted showing it to friends or family.

However, if THEY found out about it, THEY could prosecute, and likely win. You are alowed to listen to it, to make a copy of it for your car, and that is it. Anything else is a violation. Period.

Right now, there is a Judge-turned- Congressman, that is pushing for legislation to IMPRISON college students for 3 years, just for downloading mp3s. Just for their personal use.

Now...What was the original question?

By the way Paul, you have illegaly used MY quotes, without a license agreement. See you in court ;)

[Paul Tauger]

y the way Paul, you have illegaly used MY quotes, without a license agreement. See you in court ;)

Hey, that's fair use! ;)

[Boyd Ostroff]

I copied the following from a website awhile ago. No idea of how accurate it is... your mileage may vary:

============================================================
What is fair use?

Fair use provisions of the copyright law allow for limited copying or distribution of published works without the author's permission in some cases. Examples of fair use of copyrighted materials include quotation of excerpts in a review or critique, or copying of a small part of a work by a teacher or student to illustrate a lesson. New issues about fair use have arisen with the increased use of the Internet. At the time of publication, a bill is pending in Congress concerning whether fair use provisions will be extended to appropriate users/uses of copyrighted Internet materials.

When is copying is allowed by fair use provisions of the law?

There are no explicit, predefined, legal specifications of how much and when one can copy, but there are guidelines for fair use. Each case of copying must be evaluated according to four factors:

* The purpose and nature of the use--If the copy is used for teaching at a nonprofit institution, distributed without charge, and made by a teacher or students acting individually, then the copy is more likely to be considered as fair use. In addition, an interpretation of fair use is more likely if the copy was made spontaneously, for temporary use, not as part of an "anthology," and not as an institutional requirement or suggestion.
* The nature of the copyrighted work--With multimedia material there are different standards and permissions for different media: a digitized photo from a National Geographic, a video clip from Jaws, and an audio selection from Peter Gabriel1/4s CD would be treated differently--the selections are not treated as equivalent chunks of digital data.
* The nature and substantiality of the material used--In general, when other criteria are met, the copying of extracts that are "not substantial in length" when compared to the whole of which they are part may be considered fair use.
* The effect of use on the potential market for or value of the work--In general, any use that supplants or diminishes the normal market for the original work is considered an infringement, but a use does not have to have an effect on the market to be an infringement.

Although all of these factors will be considered, the fourth factor is the most important consideration in determining whether a particular use is "fair." Where a work is available for purchase or license from the copyright owner in the medium or format desired, copying of all or a substantial portion of the work in lieu of purchasing or licensing a sufficient number of "authorized" copies would be presumptively unfair. Where only a small portion of the work is to be copied and the work would not be used if purchase or licensing of a sufficient number of authorized copies were required, the intended use is more likely to be found to be fair.

How can I reference the copyright owner of digital works?

Make sure that the copyright symbol ("Copyright" or "(c)" can be used) and the name of the copyright owner is attached directly on, under, or around the digital work. It should be visible to anyone who will be using the excerpted material.

Copyrighted images, graphics, video, sounds, and written material must always be referenced; this is true even if the material is only being used once for a class presentation or project. This is important in case you should change your mind and want to use material for commercial or extended purposes; you would have a record of the copyright information and of where and when you found the material.

[Paul Tauger]

Fair use provisions of the copyright law allow for limited copying or distribution of published works without the author's permission in some cases. Examples of fair use of copyrighted materials include quotation of excerpts in a review or critique, or copying of a small part of a work by a teacher or student to illustrate a lesson.

Well, not necessarily. A very famous case, Harper v. Nation, involved an advance review published in Nation magazine which contained a one-paragraph except from, if I recall correctly, a book by Gerald Ford. The excerpt dealt with Ford's pardon of Nixon, and was _the_ central focus of the book. Harper, the book's publisher, sued and Nation defended on the grounds of fair use. Nation was held liable on the ground that publication of this central paragraph effectively destroyed the market for the book and did not, therefore, constitute fair use.

As for teachers using copyright material to illustrate a lesson, that's also not quite right. There is a fairly comprehensive list of criteria that have been developed by the courts for determining educational fair use. Among other things, they require tha the use be spontaneous, i.e. not part of a prepared lesson plan, that the number of copies be limited (I think the number cited was 20), and so on.

Fair use is an _equitable doctrine_ meaning that it is committed to the discretion of the court. It is impossible to look at the fair use statute and make a prediction as to whether a given use is or is not fair use without considering the entire corpus of common law which address such uses. That's why only an IP attorney can give an accurate prediction as to whether a given use would be deemed "fair use" or not.

New issues about fair use have arisen with the increased use of the Internet. At the time of publication, a bill is pending in Congress concerning whether fair use provisions will be extended to appropriate users/uses of copyrighted Internet materials.

When is copying is allowed by fair use provisions of the law?

There are no explicit, predefined, legal specifications of how much and when one can copy, but there are guidelines for fair use. Each case of copying must be evaluated according to four factors:

The above is accurate and so important that it's worth repeating:

There are no explicit, predefined, legal specifications of how much and when one can copy, but there are guidelines for fair use.

Note that these are only guidelines. The four factors referenced in the article come from the statute, which is a codification of the common law doctrine. These factors are _non-dispositive_, meaning that all four may be present and it still may not constitute fair use, and vice versa.

* The purpose and nature of the use--If the copy is used for teaching at a nonprofit institution, distributed without charge, and made by a teacher or students acting individually, then the copy is more likely to be considered as fair use.

Yes, but . . . see what I wrote above.

In addition, an interpretation of fair use is more likely if the copy was made spontaneously, for temporary use, not as part of an "anthology," and not as an institutional requirement or suggestion.
* The nature of the copyrighted work--With multimedia material there are different standards and permissions for different media: a digitized photo from a National Geographic, a video clip from Jaws, and an audio selection from Peter Gabriel1/4s CD would be treated differently--the selections are not treated as equivalent chunks of digital data.

This last is rather obtuse and, I think, simply wrong. A digitized photo from National Geographic, a video clip from Jaws and an audio selection from a Peter Gabriel CD are all works of authorship. It doesn't matter at all that they are in digital format. Note, though, that the photo is an _entire_ work of authorship, whereas the film clip and audio selection are merely excerpts. The amount of taking is signficant. The format from which they were taken is not.

* The nature and substantiality of the material used--In general, when other criteria are met, the copying of extracts that are "not substantial in length" when compared to the whole of which they are part may be considered fair use.
* The effect of use on the potential market for or value of the work--In general, any use that supplants or diminishes the normal market for the original work is considered an infringement, but a use does not have to have an effect on the market to be an infringement.

Although all of these factors will be considered, the fourth factor is the most important consideration in determining whether a particular use is "fair." Where a work is available for purchase or license from the copyright owner in the medium or format desired, copying of all or a substantial portion of the work in lieu of purchasing or licensing a sufficient number of "authorized" copies would be presumptively unfair.

This is just plain wrong. Fair use presumes that permission is _not_ sought, nor does it have to be. One of the more interesting fair use categories is parody. By definition, the parodist is not going to seek permission from the owner of that which is parodied.

Where only a small portion of the work is to be copied and the work would not be used if purchase or licensing of a sufficient number of authorized copies were required, the intended use is more likely to be found to be fair.

How can I reference the copyright owner of digital works?

Make sure that the copyright symbol ("Copyright" or "(c)" can be used) and the name of the copyright owner is attached directly on, under, or around the digital work.

I'm not sure what the author means, here. It is _not_ necessary to afix notice to obtain copyright protection. Since the US joined the Berne Convention in 1978, there has been no notice requirement (though it's not a bad idea, since it helps obviate a defense of non-intentional infringement).

If, however, the author is implying that attribution is somehow relevant to a fair use determination, that is totally and completely wrong. Attribution will NOT avoid liability for infrignement. Ever. Under any circumstances.

It should be visible to anyone who will be using the excerpted material.

Copyrighted images, graphics, video, sounds, and written material must always be referenced; this is true even if the material is only being used once for a class presentation or project. This is important in case you should change your mind and want to use material for commercial or extended purposes; you would have a record of the copyright information and of where and when you found the material.

This makes no sense at all. See above.

Paul, Esq.

[K. Forman]

You attorneys are just soooo long winded!

[Don Bloom]

Paul has had this discussion before on other forums. I remember the Pinnacle forum discussion.
Long winded? YES! Correct? I'm sure! Would I want Paul on my side in court? YOU BETCHA!
Paul, thanks as always for your expertise and willingness to type out all that legal stuff and for spending the time to go to law school to figure out what it all means.
Now if you could just help me with a speeding ticket... :)

[Jay Gladwell]

After reading this thread regarding Fair Use, it appears that the law has, in effect, said, 'We're gonna leave this open ended so no one can make heads nor tails out of what is and isn't acceptable. If you do anything that might even remotely resemble copyright infringement, we'll haul your butt into court and decide then what to do with you. So, you might be thinking to yourself, have I violated copyright law? You also have to ask this, Do you feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?'

How far off am I?

[Paul Tauger]

How far off am I?

Well, you'll really hate this answer: it depends.

Certain activities are clearly and absolutely not going to result in copyright infringement liability. You can copy a music CD to another music CD or tape or MP3 with relative confidence (see Audio Home Recording Act). You can give away, sell, loan or rent a copyright-protected video (see First Sale Doctrine). You can use material in the public domain to your heart's content.

Other areas are clearly and absolutely infringing. You can't make copies of protected videos and sell them, give them away, loan them, etc. You can't copy a CD to the soundtrack of a wedding video if you are a commercial videographer.

Then there are all those gray areas. As a rule, almost anything involving fair use is going to be difficult to predict, because the doctrine is not black and white; predicting the probably applicability of a fair use defense requires familiarity with the holdings of all the other fair use cases, which is why lay people usually can't do this.

The best advice is, if your livelihood depends on this and you are doing anything that skates closer to the edge, i.e. using someone else's protected material without permission, check with an IP lawyer. The cost of doing so will be relatively low (on the order of a few hundred dollars or less, and possibly free if you already have a relationship with a lawyer), particularly when compared with the costs of defending (even successfully) a copyright infringement action.

(trying to be less long-winded ;) )
Paul

[Jay Gladwell]

quote:
Well, you'll really hate this answer: it depends.


LOL -- Spoken like a true attorney, Paul! ;o)


quote:
Then there are all those gray areas... because the doctrine is not black and white...


I think therein lies the real issue. It's hard enough to apply such law as it is, when the jurists themselves recognize it's a matter of interpretation it seems inevitable that there will be mass confusion and misunderstanding along the laymen. One gets the feeling that the Powers That Be planned it this way.

[Gary Kelly]

This thread seems to have drifted somewhat from Brad's original 'quick question'! But it's interesting nevertheless :)

Copyright does seem to be an emotive issue, but in reality (as in all walks of life really) common sense and the willingness to ask the kind of questions Brad originally posted go a long way to preventing nasty surprises.

Such as: stop and think about how *you'd* feel if the video you'd lovingly created and posted on the 'net suddenly appeared on TV or elsewhere under someone else's name?

I'm a novelist, and some of my works are on the 'net. I get a buzz when I check my web logs and see that someone's downloaded one of my books, I hope they enjoy the read. But if a friend tells me that he's just rented a video from Blockbuster and it's *my* story, *my* characters, *my* work, dammit, and no-one so much as asked my permission to adapt the book for the screen? Well yes, I'd find meself in a somewhat dischuffed and litigious mood...

It's not 'the law' that presses suit.

The "THEY" that bring suit in copyright cases are the copyright owners, which (unless the artist has sold the rights) is the creative soul whose skill and imagination produced the work...in other words, *you* (and if modesty permits, me! :)

BTW...there's plenty of 'Royalty Free' sound-track material to be had from the likes of eBay, and a great deal of it is really rather good!

Just my 2p

[K. Forman]

Actually, it's easy enough for even an idjit like me to understand-
If you BOUGHT it, or it is on TV or radio, you can:
A) Listen to, or watch it.
B) Make a copy to listen to in the car.
C) Give it away.

You CANNOT:
A) Make 5 copies and give them away or sell them. (Distribution)
B) You cannot use it as a componant of your project, whether it is for yourself, friends, family. It doesn't matter if you make any money off of it or not.
C) Say it is yours.

" If you want to use something, and it has been created by someone else, you must have permission. "( Quote is copyrighted, trademarked, and patented, Capt Quirk, 2003. No Paul, you cannot use it :)

[Jay Gladwell]

Keith, first of all, I can only speak for myself...

You're assuming I'm an idjit. Which I'm not. Had I scored a mere 5 points higher on the von Dryburne Standard I.Q. Test they would have classified me as a mineral!

[K. Forman]

Jay- I am not assuming that anyone here is an idjit, altho I have had idjit-like tendencies from time to time. I also did not mean to imply that. It is just really simple to understand what is and is not allowed with copyrighted material. There are some grey areas, but for the most part, it is simple to understand.

"If it ain't yours, you can't use it without permission." Also copyrighted, trademarked and patented- You can't use this either, Paul ;)

If someone takes your car, without your permission, it is THEFT.
If you use someone's music, without permission, it is THEFT.
Most items that are copyrighted will tell you what you can't do with their property. There are alot of people that break these laws every day, and nothing happens because it is minor infractions, or they just don't get caught. Is it still illegal? Yep. Is it immoral? Maybe. Do I lay awake at night worrying about it? Nope.

[Jay Gladwell]

Sorry, Keith, I was just kidding around!

My point was I didn't even make it to the idjit level. ;o)

[Will Fastie]

An interesting site I just learned about that might interest some here: www.ipjustice.org.