Copyright Infinity

So you made an embarrassing video of yourself, dancing in a grass skirt with a viking helmet on. And your brother put it up on MySpace. And now, all of a sudden, you’re an internet celebrity like William Hung or Chocolate Rain…

Ahhh, probably not the way you wanted to be a celebrity.

What can you do about it? You can SUE him! Cha-Ching! Squeeze every last dime out of that filthy backstabber – for, you know… emotional damamges.

Or you can just have a judge make him take it all down. Copyrights are for works like writing, recordings, videos, art work and design. It’s usually accompanied by that ‘c’ thing at the bottom with the owner and the date. But just because there’s no copyright symbol doesn’t mean it’s not copyrighted. Like that embarrassing video… that everyone’s seen…

Whenever you do anything creative, that work is instantly copyrighted. You don’t even have to file any paperwork – it’s just copyrighted.

You can register it with the Library of Congress but the main reason for doing that is so you can establish a date of creation in case you want to sue somebody or someone else is trying to say they made it up first, and if you do, you can sue for additional lawyer’s fees.

‘Cause you know that the whole point of intellectual property is, pretty much, suing people. Once a copyright expires it becomes part of the public domain. That means it can be used for free without giving credit or paying royalties to the creator. Mozart’s music, for example, is public domain. But be careful, the Boston Philharmonic’s performance of a Mozart concerto is likely still copyrighted by the Boston Philharmonic.

How long does a copyright last? Well, every few decades, the high powered legal department of the Walt Disney corporation descends on Washington and convinces them that copyright should be extended a few more years, just so they can keep the copyright on Mickey Mouse.

You know he’s going to star in some weird Indie films once he hits the public domain.

Right now, copyrights last for 120 years after creation, 95 after publication, or 70 years after the death of the creator. But as long as you’re behind Mickey, and they keep lobbying, it could go on forever.

[Mickey's voice:] Hi ya senator? How’d you like to make a fat wad of cash??? Ha ha ha ha

There’s also something called the ‘fair-use’ clause. If you want to use a copyrighted work without permission, like quoting a famous author in a college paper, you can – as long as the source is attributed to the copyright holder and its a limited excerpt and its not done for money… then you’re pretty safe using it. But the lines on what is and isn’t fair-use haven’t been very clearly defined in the courts… so try it at your own risk.

[Mickey's voice:] You want a piece of me?! I will see you in court! I’m going to sue your sorry little…

Ahem…ah yeah.

Copyright law isn’t uniform across all countries, and it isn’t easy to enforce internationally. That’s why you see all sorts of tv shows and movies all over the internet – for free. They didn’t get permission. Their servers are just in countries that don’t care about our laws. That, or it takes too much money to shut them down.

[Mickey's voice:] Oh, I’ve got the money. You’re going down buddy! Who do you think cut all those undersea internet cables?? Ha ha ha

It’s kind of hard to get permission to use everything you can find online, which makes the internet into a kind of intellectual property minefield.

[Mickey's voice:] I’ve buried lawyers ALL over the internet. Just try and step on one without getting subpoenered.

Because people got tired of asking, some interesting new alternatives to traditional copyrighting are being explored under the name ‘Creative Commons’. It’s a system of rights for marking material so that users and viewers know what IS and ISN’T okay to do with your work. ‘You can modify it, but you can’t sell it, but you have to attribute it to me as the original source.’ – stuff like that.

It’s not written in legalese, it’s really easy to understand, and you can find out more at CreativeCommons.org. So feel free safe to explore and create, because your stuff is safe – as long as you’re behind Mickey.

[Mickey's voice:] All right, everybody, get in line. We’re taking this to Washington!… ha ha… C’mon, I’m a kids cartoon. I should not be in adult films!

Transcribed by: Ian

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