Copyright Law and What Constitutes as “Fair-Use”

Most people are extremely confused about copyright law and what constitutes as “fair use” and whether or not you should ask for permission to use someone else’s copyrighted works. As a former Intellectual Property paralegal I know how important it is to use materials that are either royalty free of have been granted free to use via written permission from the creator or is in the public domain.

Let’s first examine what this copyright stuff is all about. Everything, and I mean everything, that is in a tangible and/or electronic format is copyrighted the moment it is created. That means that your manuscript you penned back when you were 12 and is in your basement chest is copyrighted. That also means that this response, as I am typing it is copyrighted. A common misnomer is that something must be dated to be copyrighted, or must be filed with the United States Copyright Office (USCO). That is false. Where these two things will help you should you need to go to court, they are not necessary.

I have recently been asked by a client (http://www.airmontdistributing.com) if I could use a specific photo he found while browsing photos on Google. My short answer was “yes, I can use it, but I will not use it. I will find you a copyright safe alternative and purchase a license to use it.” Some people think that if it is on the web then it is free to use. That is false. This belief can land you in hot water known as federal court. You do not want this to happen. With so many micro stock sites such as http://www.iStockPhoto.com and http://www.StockXpert.com there really is no need to find images from search engines and use them in projects. If money is an issue then the free stock site, http://www.sxc.hu, may be exactly what you need.

There are several pieces of art that have been released into the public domain and are free to use. Sometimes these pieces have specific terms you must follow such as listing credit, no degrading work made from the piece and so on.

Also, there is the art of asking artists for permission to use their artwork. Many artists will allow free use of their work for private non-commercial projects. So, you can use this type of work on your personal website and/or blog or desktop wallpaper but you may not use this for a client.

I have a list of approximately 150 or so artists who I know and have been granted permission to use their artwork for personal use only. I have also licensed an artists’ work to use on my personal blog.

You can always find beautiful work to use that is in the public domain due to age. I won’t go into a great deal of detail since you can find the USCO Copyright Term and the Public Domain document attached. The gist of the document is the following: *Note “author” relates to the copyright holder/creator.

For Never Published, Never Registered Works the copyright term is the life of the author + 70 years. Works from authors who died prior to 1938 are now in the public domain as of January 1, 2008.
For Works Published in the U.S. the copyright is expired if they were created prior to 1923 and have not had their copyright renewed.

There are more categories that should be examined and studied. Feel free to save the attached document and use it as a reference. Permission has been granted for this document for non-profit educational use.

I have been asked to use various articles I’ve created such as code snippets to original artwork. I’ve granted permission for personal use for free. However I do charge for commercial use of my work. Also, on my website you will see articles I’ve written that I allow to be used for scholarly research.

For my clients I always use royalty free images and art from micro stock sites or I use my own personal library of photos and art.

I am very knowledgeable in Copyright Law as well as other areas of Intellectual Property. Should anyone have any questions regarding copyright I will be happy to answer any questions.

I hope at least a few of you have found the information in this article useful.