COPYRIGHT 101 FOR CONTENT CREATORS
Digital technology has made it easier than ever before to copy and reuse other people’s work and even easier to create content; create and share one’s own work.
WHO ARE CONTENT CREATORS?
I am sure most of us have heard the term, “content creators”, but what exactly does it mean? According to the State of Digital Publishing (SODP), a content creator is someone who is responsible for the contribution of information to any media and most especially digital media. A content creator can contribute any of the following; blog, news, image, video, audio, social media updates, and other related content.
Content creators create appealing and awe-inspiring content, the likes of TKay Nthebe, Skaftin, and Ms Kiva to mention a few in our country. The content is likely to attract people who might use their work, therefore, content creators need to be familiar with Intellectual Property especially Copyright to protect their own work.
WHAT IS COPYRIGHT?
Copyright is the legal protection given to literary or artistic works that are recorded in a fixed, tangible medium- songs, drawings, photography, writings, etc. It should be noted that facts, ideas, concepts, principles, works that are not in a tangible form and data cannot be copyrighted.
ONE GETS COPYRIGHT PROTECTION AUTOMATICALLY.
The minute a person creates original literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic work and/or original non-literary work such as software, they automatically have copyright protection. Copyright is inferred once the work is in a tangible form. One can mark his work with the copyright symbol ©, year of creation, and name but the level of protection is not affected at all.
THE DOCTRINE OR FAIR USE
The rights of copyright owners are subject to limitations and one limitation is the “Fair Use Doctrine”. Fair use is a defense to copyright infringement. The doctrine allows the unlicensed use of copyrighted works to reproduce and reuse copyrighted works in ways that are considered fair- such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. There is a thin line between fair use and copyright infringement, therefore, it is crucial that one familiarizes themselves with the principles of fair use and proceed with caution.
LASTLY, EVEN IF YOU CREATED IT, YOU MIGHT NOT OWN IT
This is an exception to the general copyright rule that the creator of a work owns the copyright to the work. In a lot of instances, this exception involves some sort of an employment relationship or contractual agreement where certain companies’ agreement state that they take full ownership of whatever the employee creates even on the employee’s ’off-hours’. If an employee creates a work in the course of employment, the employer automatically owns the copyright to those works, absent any agreement to the contrary. Even though a person did all the work by themselves using their own skills and creativity, the tasks form part of the job.
The information provided in this blog post is intended to give education on copyright law. The information provided does not create or constitute a lawyer-client relationship. If you need legal advice for a specific copyright problem, please consult a lawyer.
Article by: Tlhaloso Mpopo (LLB, NUL)
