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COPYRIGHT and the LAW © by Madeeha Chowdhury

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You shoot a : 30 second video of your cat getting beaten up by a fox. Congratulations, you’ve just created a totally badass, copyrighted work! And wow, your cat needs some self defense lessons, the streets can be soo tough.

I will be taking you through the law of Copyright. Copyright protection exists from the moment a work is created in a fixed, tangible form of expression. The copyright immediately becomes the property of the author who created the work. Only the author, or those deriving their rights through the author, can rightfully claim copyright. Copyright gives the creators of some types of media rights to control how they're used and distributed. Music, books, video and software can all be covered by copyright law. The current act is the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

+Types of work protected

Literary:  song lyrics, manuscripts, manuals, computer programs, commercial documents, leaflets, newsletters & articles etc.

Dramatic: plays, dance, etc. Musical: recordings and score. Artistic: photography, painting, sculptures, architecture,

technical drawings/diagrams, maps, logos. Typographical arrangement of published editions:

magazines, periodicals, etc. Sound recording: may be recordings of other copyright

works, e.g. musical and literary. Film: video footage, films, broadcasts and cable

programmes.

+What is work?

Now most of you will read the title and feel I am being patronising and think ; well it is quite obvious what ‘work’ means Madeeha! But you will be surprised as to how many different meanings it can have. To help unwrap the meaning below are some cases expressing the meanings:

Exxon v Exxon Insurance (1982) RPC 69 - The Court found that usually there is no copyright in a name, invented or otherwise, and that a trade mark can only be infringed when the infringing party shares part of the market segment.

: turn to next slide

+Walter v Lane [1900] AC 539

A reporter attended a speech by Lord Rosebery. His report of the speech was republished in the Times. He claimed a copyright in the work he produced.

The House considered what was required to establish originality for copyright purposes.

Held: Copyright subsisted in reports prepared by shorthand writers’ of public speeches as ‘original literary’ works. The speeches were made by the Earl of Rosebery in public when reporters were present. The reporters made notes in shorthand, transcribed them, corrected, revised and punctuated them and published them in newspapers as verbatim reports of the speeches. A speech and a report of a speech are two different things. Lord Rosebery was the author of his speeches. The shorthand writers were the authors of their reports of his speeches. They spent effort, skill and time in writing up their reports of speeches that they themselves had not written. Even though the reporters had intended only to reproduce the speeches as accurately as they could, the works they prepared remained original works.

Lord Halsbury LC said: The law does not permit: ‘one man to make profit and appropriate to himself the labour skill and capital of another.’

Now breath!!

+What is originality ?

S.(1)(1)(a) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 states that copyright subsists in “original literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works.” But, the Act does not state what ‘original’ exactly means. Therefore, case law must be examined in unveiling the notion of the word:

Interlego AG v Tyco Industries Inc [1989] 1AC 217 The plaintiff, Interlego AG, sued the defendant, Tyco Industries, for copyright infringement of its Lego bricks. However, it had previously registered its design.

The court held that the bricks qualified for registered design protection, and thus did not qualify for copyright protection. Lord Oliver wrote as follows: There is clearly scope in the instant case for that argument that what gives the Lego brick its individuality and the originality without which it would fail for want of novelty as a registrable design is the presence of features which serve only the functional purpose of enabling it to interlock effectively with the adjoining bricks above and below

Lord Oliver held that to afford copyright protection on a copy of a work, “there must in addition be some element of material alteration or embellishment which suffices to make the totality of the work an original work".

+When rights occur

Copyright is an automatic right and arises whenever an individual or company creates a work. To qualify, a work should be regarded as original, and exhibit a degree of labour, skill or judgement.

Interpretation is related to the independent creation rather than the idea behind the creation. For example, your idea for a book would not itself be protected, but the actual content of a book you write would be. In other words, someone else is still entitled to write their own book around the same idea, provided they do not directly copy or adapt yours to do so.

Names, titles, short phrases and colours are not generally considered unique or substantial enough to be covered, but a creation, such as a logo, that combines these elements may be.

In short, work that expresses an idea may be protected, but not the idea behind it.

+Restricted acts

It is an offence to perform any of the following acts without the consent of the owner:

Copy the work. Example: Burning a video file to a DVD.

Rent, lend or issue copies of the work to the public.

Perform, broadcast or show the work in public.

Adapt the work.

Licence- Grant other people all or some of the above rights.

The author of a work, or a director of a film may also have certain moral rights:

The right to be identified as the author.

Right to object to derogatory treatment.

+ Duration of copyright The 1988 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act states the duration of copyright as;

For literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works: 70 years from the end of the calendar year in which the last remaining author of the work dies. If the author is unknown, copyright will last for 70 years from end of the calendar year in which the work was created, although if it is made available to the public during that time, (by publication, authorised performance, broadcast, exhibition, etc.), then the duration will be 70 years from the end of the year that the work was first made available.

Sound Recordings and broadcasts: 50 years from the end of the calendar year in which the work was created, or, if the work is released within that time: 50 years from the end of the calendar year in which the work was first released.

Films: 70 years from the end of the calendar year in which the last principal director, author or composer dies.

If the work is of unknown authorship: 70 years from end of the calendar year of creation, or if made available to the public in that time, 70 years from the end of the year the film was first made available.

Typographical arrangement of published editions: 25 years from the end of the calendar year in which the work was first published.

Broadcasts and cable programmes: 50 years from the end of the calendar year in which the broadcast was made.

Crown Copyright: Crown copyright will exist in works made by an officer of the Crown, this includes items such as legislation and documents and reports produced by government bodies. Crown Copyright will last for a period of 125 years from the end of the calendar year in which the work was made. If the work was commercially published within 75 years of the end of the calendar year in which it was made, Crown copyright will last for 50 years from the end of the calendar year in which it was published.

Parliamentary Copyright: Parliamentary Copyright will apply to work that is made by or under the direction or control of the House of Commons or the House of Lords and will last until 50 years from the end of the calendar year in which the work was made.

+Remedies

If you are anything like me, when you hear the word remedy you will automatically think $$$!

Remedies that are available to owners of work, are set out in chapter 6 of the CDPA 1988 Act. When an infringement has occurred, then it becomes actionable to the owner. The available remedies are damages, injunctions, account and otherwise as available for infringement of any other property right. S96. As long as I get my monies!!!

+Cases

Now all the boring part is out of the way, yup I said it and I’m going to say it again BORING PART.. I have compiled some interesting cases for you all! Sometimes educating yourself on the law on certain subjects are interesting but I find it fun to know facts of cases which help to put the law into practice. I hope you feel the same, otherwise I have just spent time researching these cases for my own amusement.

Gucci vs Guess: In 2009 Gucci sued Guess for infringing on five Gucci trademarks, including the use of similar logos. This is perhaps unsurprising given that Guess has been subject to 12 copyright complaints over the last ten years. Gosh soo unoriginal Guess! But they have successfully managed to resolve all previous situations almost immediately... until they messed with Gucci; the Hugh Hefner of labels. Guess used many of Gucci's distinctive marks, including a green and red stripe used on handbags, the repeating, inverted GG pattern, and the company's use of brown and beige colours, mostly used in conjunction with diamond shape patterns. Of course, Gucci came out on top, but not in the way they had hoped for. Initially asking for $221m in damages, the judge told Gucci they were only entitled to an accounting of profits and limited the damages. In the end, Gucci only received $4.7m.Guess was also barred from using most of their designs ever again, primarily the Quattro G patterns in brown and beige colours and the CRG stripe.

Lucas loses Star Wars copyright case at Supreme Court:  A prop designer who made the original Stormtrooper helmets for Star Wars had won his copyright battle with director George Lucas over his right to sell replicas. Andrew Ainsworth spent half a decade and almost £700,000 fighting the full force of a movie mogul's legal team.

Apple vs Microsoft: The battle between these tech giants started with a simple question: who invented the graphical user interface? Apple filed a lawsuit against Microsoft in 1988. Apple’s case included 189 contested visual displays that violated its copyright. This led to a six-year long battle. The lawsuit was decided in Microsoft’s favor on August 24, 1993