Copyright Law for Newspapers

This presentation deals with the practical copyright areas newspapers face every day -- especially in deciding on whether they can use photos and information found on social media.

Transcript

1. TCCJ Workshop Chip Stewart Bob Schieffer College of Communication, TCU @MediaLawProf Oct. 9, 2015
3.  Copyright attaches to works of authorship at moment of creation  Text, audio, photo, video, architecture, etc.  Must be original, typically “novel” as well  How about a tweet? A YouTube video?  Even memes – original photo use isn’t free  Minimum damages: $750 per infringing use  Often 3x to 30x assessed  Example: AFP v. Morel (SDNY 2013), $1.2 million for Haiti earthquake photos  Terms: Copyright basically lasts 70 years after life of author
5.  Daniel Morel, freelance photographer, shot Haiti earthquake & posted photos on Twitter  Another guy took the photos, said they were his own, sold license to AFP & Getty Images  Morel notified AFP, Getty, etc., but they didn’t take down from wires  AFP argues they were third party under Twitter Terms of Service  Morel sues & wins $1.2 million
6.  Good news: One of the exceptions specifically listed in copyright law for fair use is “news purposes”  Others: research, scholarship, education  Bad news: That just qualifies you for further fair use analysis under courts’ 4-part test:  Purpose of the secondary work (profit, non?)  Is it “transformative”  Nature of the original work (fact, fiction?)  Amount and substantiality of the use  Effect on the marketplace of original
8.  Former President Gerald Ford wrote memoirs in 1977  Publishers Harper & Row signed exclusive deal with Time to publish 7,000-word excerpt (for $50,000)  The Nation got a leaked copy and wrote a 2,250-word article  beat Time to article by a few weeks
9.  Purpose of use  News reporting -- commercial, non-profit?  Nature of original work  Fact or fiction?  Amount/substantiality of portion used  300 words of 200,000 word manuscript?  The heart of the book?  Impact on market?  “right of first publication”
10.  Fair use defense generally doesn’t extend to publicity/commercial uses  So, I found this photo on Facebook…  OK to repost on same platform (retweet, e.g.) or if using same API (Storify)
11. Rule 1: Make it yourself Rule 2: If you didn’t make it yourself, get permission or buy a license Rule 3: Share, don’t take
12.  The DMCA creates a takedown procedure for copyrighted material shared online without a license  If it’s yours, you can send a note to the web host to remove your work from the site  If they don’t, you can sue both poster and site  If you post something that someone else has a copyright in without permission, they can ask for a takedown as well  Should do in good faith. See Lenz v. Universal.  This does not replace infringement – can still sue and be sued under regular © law