9. This post is copyrighted

For this blog post, I’m drawing upon what I already know about intellectual property. Most of what I know comes from a corporate setting, both from my internship at State Farm and from my dad’s job as an intellectual property attorney. Because I won’t be in class on Thursday, I’ll have a conversation with Sohum about copyright based on his notes!

Copyright

A copyright gives exclusive ownership to whoever creates the piece. It sounds simple enough, but there’s lost of gray area. Here’s what I know:

• Copyright is automatic. You don’t need to put a disclaimer at the bottom of your website or piece.
• It needs to be original. Thresholds of originality vary across jurisdictions and aren’t always clear.
• Copyright protects the way you expressed an idea, not the idea itself. This is frequently the deciding factor in copyright lawsuits; to decide, judges ignore the actual idea of the piece and only focus on way the piece was created. For example, you can’t copyright a recipe which is a list of ingredients; instead, you could copyright the photos and story in a cookbook. This is why Coca-Cola hasn’t released its recipe — it protects the recipe with a trade secret.
• Copyright is owned by the person who creates it. When writing on behalf of another organization (for example, a company or educational institution), the copyright might automatically be owned by the organization. I’m not sure whether I own this blog post or whether the University of Illinois Board of Trustees does… oh well ¯_(ツ)_/¯ Also, my use of the word “person” is intentional. If a monkey takes a selfie, the camera owner doesn’t own the copyright.

Copyright owners can easily allow others to use their content with Creative Commons. It’s very widely used, and there are many options depending on how you want people to use it.

Fair use

Fair use covers how you can use someone else’s copyrighted work without breaking the law. It allows people to talk about copyrighted work and educators to teach. There are a few things that decide whether your use is fair:

1. Whether it’s actually copyrighted. If it can’t be copyrighted, you don’t need to worry about fair use (see previous section). Also, you have to be very very careful that the content you’re using is actually owned by the person who posted it. Just because it shows up on Google Images or Wikipedia as “labeled for reuse” doesn’t mean you can actually use it. Images, videos, and audio are frequently mislabeled, and this mislabel won’t protect you if you get sued by the actual copyright owner.
2. What you’re using it for. If you’re using it for commercial use, rules are a lot stricter (for example, Marvel threatened to sue State Farm for using #Avengers in a Tweet). If you’re using it for educational use, you’re probably fine. If you’re an individual, you might get in trouble, but the owner will probably just ask you nicely to take it down.
3. How much of the work you’re using. The less you use, the more likely it is to be fair use. Rules area always changing and vary across modes of communication and jurisdictions.
4. How it affects the copyright owner. If your use has little impact, it’s fair use, but if the owner could’ve profited from or if they lost money from your use, it’s not fair use. Because large corporations are at higher risk of getting sued for a lot of money, they usually discourage use of all copyrighted work, even if it could possibly be fair use.

Copyright litigation is expensive, and owners will likely only sue if they believe they can profit from a win. Some law firms exist solely to profit from finding people not fairly using content. Earlier this semester, the European Union began legislation that could “ban memes,” or more realistically, change the way the internet works.

Citing sources

Similar to how fair use varies based on its use, so do expectations regarding citing sources. In academia, citing sources is usually encouraged. It helps validate accuracy of information, and sometimes, copyright owners only allow their content to be used if it’s cited.

Corporations usually discourage citing sources. Because copyright and fair use doesn’t inherently require you to cite your source, there’s no reason to. In addition, it basically advertises that you’re using someone else’s content and encourages litigation.

Copyright is a very complicated subject. Whether something can be copyrighted is unclear, and fair use varies across who uses it and how you use it. Additionally, it’s a small part of intellectual property as a whole, which includes trademarks, patents, trade secrets, and other things.