Copyright

Imagine if we lived in a world whereby everything we created could instantly be copied, a photograph, a piece of art, a design, a graphic, or music, lyrics and sounds. Raw talent wouldn't be noticed, and there would be nothing you could call your own, no stamp of approval before it was shared, and any form of innovation would be virtually non-existent, with people passing off your work as their own.

Luckily there is a law to prevent this, and that is the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 which protects our material and intellectual property. Without the copyright law we would not be able to produce any creative content, which is particularly important in Journalism as ‘exclusives interviews’ and articles wouldn't be possible without this form of protection.

There are particular rules for journalists as to what they can ‘lift’ from other peoples articles, although we cannot word for word copy someone else’s work we can copy quotes providing we attribute the publication of where it was originally sourced from. Journalists have to respect copyright laws, and identify the risks that we would face using someone else’s work.

The exemption when it comes to using broadcast material is if it is used for the purpose of reporting on a current news event. For example the death of a famous figure, such as an actor - you would expect to see an obituary including films that they were involved in. This is possible because it is reporting on a current event under fair dealing; however we have to consider the time limits in which it can remain public. The News Access Rights agreement means that you can only show it for a certain amount of time.

Fair dealing means that content has been used for the purpose of 'reporting current events', however in keeping with the guidelines means it must be in the public interest, of fair usage and attributed to the owner. By fair usage, it means only taking a short clip from the full video as a preview. This is why the fail dealing exemption does not apply for still photographs because you are using the entire creative work, therefore you would have to look for images under creative commons without copyright.

Everything of original work is protected such as books, films, music and photographs, however the Act does not protect undeveloped ideas, slogans or catch phrases. When it comes to needing access to content that is not your own, recognise the copy right issues early on and contact the rights holder. Once you have copyright cleared then you are safe to use it, just don’t think about lifting material without referencing it.

If in doubt, always call the lawyer.