Copyright Overview for Publishers of Newsletters – Part 1
Copyright law confuses many newsletter editors. Heck, it boggles many lawyers; don’t feel like you’re alone. Let’s bravely forge ahead and learn to swim the muddy copyright waters. (We’ll rinse off at the end.)
This blog tries to covers what copyright law is, what you can and can’t copy without permission and how to receive copyright releases on commonly reprinted items in newsletters such as cartoons, photographs and articles.
What Copyright Law Is
Copyright law protects the combinations of words or graphic images as the property of their creator. While it protects the means used to express an idea, it does not guard the idea itself. This means that you are freed from copyright violation if you cull information from magazines and summarise it in your own words (“reporting” on them). Industry ethics say that you must credit the source, especially when using the information for promotion.
Quoting directly from an article is permissible up to an ambiguous point. Then, it becomes copyright infringement. A few sentences from a long article are safe. Beyond that, it gets muddy.
Fair Usage Laws- How Much Is Safe?
Fair use exceptions state that you may quote briefly from a copyrighted work without asking permission fro purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship or research. The amount you can quote without permission is difficult to establish. The law states that the portion quoted can be a substantial portion of the copyrighted work. It also can’t significantly affect the market value of the work.
These two criteria are not clear-cut. The interpretation of your newsletter’s purpose and what constitutes a “substantial portion” is left up to a judge to decide. You may consider your use news reporting. A judge may consider it advertising. “Protection under fair use is so limited that you shouldn’t take solace that you’ll be protected by it,” says lawyer Brian Smith of Brian L.Smith & Associates, Nashville, TN.
If you decide to quote a copyrighted work, cite the title, publisher and publication date. Do not copy and paste an article from the Web and just list the source information and assume that you’ll be okay.
To be continued…
