Skip to main content

Copyright Infringement

Play It Safe: Making Sure You're Not Committing Copyright Infringement

Copyright infringement is not an easy thing to explain. While it may seem as simple as not using someone else’s work, it’s not that easy. Thanks to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and many other organizations, we have the ability to use others’ works – as long as we use it under ‘fair use’ laws. So what does fair use have to do with copyright infringement, and how can you utilize it?

Fair use laws are the conditions in which you can use a copyrighted work without having to pay someone royalties. This includes when you use a copyrighted work for educational or instructional uses, criticism of the work, commentaries on the work, news reporting about the work, teaching on the work (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship uses, and research. This is talked about fully in Section 107 of the Copyright Code (commonly called Fair Use) and is available for you to read at your local library.

Copyright Infringement in day-to-day life

Sometimes, if you’re writing a paper for work or school, or if you are creating a Power Point presentation, you need to use someone’s work that is already in copyright. So how do you use it without committing copyright infringement? All you have to do is ask – the worst they can say is no, right? But, if they do say no, there are several items in the public domain which may help you to finish your project without having to commit copyright infringement.

What is the public domain, and how does it relate to copyright infringement?

Material that is not copyrighted is considered in the public domain – you cannot commit copyright infringement on works in the public domain. These works include things that the copyright has expired on, or is not copyright-able – such as government publications, jokes, titles, and ideas.

So, how do I ensure I’m not committing copyright infringement?

First of all, if you’re going to use someone else’s material, you may want to check the public domain to see if something is suitable for use, instead of trying to use someone else’s copyright. However, if you can’t find something suitable (and you can’t create something yourself), the next best thing (and your only legal course of action) is to find a piece that is in copyright, and contacting the copyright holder. 

When you contact the copyright holder, make sure you tell them what you want to use their piece for – whether it’s for your blog, podcast, or report – and ask them if you can use it. You may have to pay royalties, or an attribution in your piece, or a combination of both. The creator may also place many limitations on when and how you can use their material. Follow all these instructions they give you, and you’ll be free and clear to use their work as you want. 

Once you have permission to use a copyrighted work, you need to make sure you stay within the agreed-upon boundaries - if you veer outside their agreed terms, you may open yourself up for a copyright infringement lawsuit – which can be nasty, costly, and time consuming. If you’re in doubt, before contacting the copyright holder, contact a copyright lawyer to ensure you’re following the law – and protect yourself!

Jose Amoros
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Road To Success

Currently, there are thousands of online enthusiasts who are taking the plunge and joining the community of affiliate marketers.  With e-commerce booming,and the internet dominating the business world,becoming an affiliate marketer is a very wise choice. To be successful with affiliate marketing, it's always best to learn the basics of the affiliate marketing business, then realize what sacrifices will need to be made for you to accomplish your goals.  To get to the top of affiliate marketing, you'll need to make the necessary sacrifices. Before you join any type of program, you should learn as much as possible about the company.  It's  actually very easy to research companies, as search engines are easily the one of the most primary  sources for information.  To be on the safe side,you should ensure that the program and company has  been operating for several years - which can be easily and properly verified. If the company has just st...
Post a Comment
Read more

What Is Niche Marketing, and Do I Need It?

In marketing, a niche refers to a service or a product that occupies a special area of demand.  It is that small corner in the market that accounts for a certain kind of specialty concerning an unmet customer need.   To be able to attract a strong, solid market, the choice of a niche product should ultimately complement the website one owns.  It is through this scheme that he is able to generate a specific market for the niche product he is trying to sell. Niches are involved in niche marketing, the process of finding market segments that are small but potentially profitable nonetheless.  To maintain a profitable quantity of sales, this marketing strategy relies on increasing the loyalty of customers so that their corporate objectives will be met or surpassed.  Illustrative of this is the fact that the quality of the product or service sold will generate customer satisfaction and, consequently, customer loyalty.  The result is profitability...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Importance of Keywords

Keyword density and placement are important parts of optimizing your articles for search engines. Search engine spiders scan a page in a way that makes it important to place your keywords where they will be detected and recognized as a keyword, so that your article will come up when someone searches for that keyword. What is a Keyword? A keyword is a word that is going to be placed in your article several times, not just once as that would make every word a keyword. When a spider sees that you have a word placed several times in an article, it will determine that your page may be useful to users that search for such a keyword.  Over Optimizing Your Articles It is important to note that there is also such a thing as over optimizing your articles for particular words, this is known as “keyword stuffing”. When you stuff keywords in an article a spider will detect that you are trying to trick it into placing your article high in the search engine results for that wo...
Post a Comment
Read more