Copyright Copyright Copyright is a United States law

Copyright

Copyright • Copyright is a United States law that protects the rights of creators and gives them exclusive rights to their work for a limited amount of time. • Copyright happens automatically as soon as a copy of the work is created. • Just because you don’t see the copyright symbol doesn’t mean the work is “public domain” (you have the right to use it freely). In fact, the opposite is usually true. • The symbol itself can provide the reader with important information including who owns the copyright and the first year of publication. • A person does not have to register their work with the Copyright Office for action to be taken against a person infringing on that work; however it will help. • Copyright registration is a public record and puts other people on notice.

The copyright “owner” has the exclusive rights to: • reproduce the work • prepare “spin off” created from the work • copies or phonorecords (cassette tapes, CD’s LP’s, 45 rpm’s as well adistributes other formats) by sale or transfer of ownership, rental, lease or lending • perform the work publicly (for plays, musicals, poetry, choreography, pantomimes, movies and other audiovisuals) • display the work publicly (poems, musicals, plays, choreography, pantomimes, pictorial, graphics, sculptures, individual images from movies and other audiovisual works) • perform publicly (by digital audio transmission) sound recordings They can also give permission for others to do the same.

Copyrights can be obtained for the following types of works: • Literary (including computer programs) • Musical (including accompanying lyrics) • Dramatic (including accompanying music) • Pantomimes and choreographic • Pictorial, graphic and sculpted (including maps) • Motion picture and other audiovisual • Sound recordings • Architectural

Copyright Registration: • Registering a work is a simple process. Send the following three items together in the same envelope. • A completed application form. (This can be found on the Copyright Office Website at www. loc. gov/copyright. ) • A $30 non-refundable filing fee (effective through 6 -30 -02) for each application. • A non-returnable copy of the work to be registered. • Just because your work is copyrighted in the U. S. does not mean it is throughout the world. Most countries offer some protection to foreign works under certain conditions. If you would like to see which countries maintain copyright relations with the U. S. visit the Copyright Office Website mentioned above.

Once you have obtained copyright protection, how long will it be safe? • Currently once a work is created it is protected until 70 years after the author has died. • If there are co-authors, the copyright lasts until 70 years after the last surviving author passes away. • For works that were commissioned and those written under pseudonyms or whose authors are unknown, the copyright is effective 95 years from first publication or 120 years from creation – whichever is shortest. • The author can sell their copyrights to another party (as was the case of Michael Jackson purchasing a large number of Beatles songs) and can even leave them to someone in their will.

Fair Use • If a person wishes to use part of someone else’s work they have to obtain written permission from the author of that original work. • Only in “fair use” cases do you not have to obtain permission. The courts created fair use guidelines for teachers and students. • This “policy” permits those of us working in the school setting to “borrow” parts of an original work without obtaining written permission from the author. • There are four basic guidelines used for the fair use policy - purpose, nature, amount and effect. • Copyright Fair Use Guidelines for Students

Below are some of the acceptable and unacceptable uses mentioned on this site. Purpose Nature Amount Effect Acceptable Teaching, research, news reporting Acceptable Factual, important to education Acceptable Small quantity, portion is not crucial to entire work Acceptable No major effect on the market, user legally owns a copy of original work Illegal Making money from sale of work, don’t give credit to author of original work Illegal Very creative work (art, music, literary, films, plays), fiction Illegal Large or entire work used, the part of the original used is crucial to new work’s success Illegal Could replace selling of original, many copies made, used for a long time, made it available on the Web United States Government works are considered public domain and may be used freely.

Generally speaking up to 10% of a work can be used. See the chart below for more clarification. Motion Media Text Material Music, Lyrics and Music Video Illustrations and Photographs Up to 10% or 3 minutes, whichever is less Up to 10% or 1000 words, whichever is less; an entire poem of less than 250 words may be used but no more than 3 excerpts from a poet Up to 10% but no more than 30 seconds of the music and lyrics, alterations to a musical work can’t change the basic melody or character of work An entire photo or drawing may be used but no more than 5 images from the same artist, or when from a published collective work not more than 10% or 15 images, whichever is less

Who Gets the Money? • Let’s break it down for you. In the making of a CD here are the key players and the percentage of sales that they get, Artist (6. 6%) Producer (2. 2%) Songwriters (4. 5%) Distributor (22%) Manufacturing (5%) Retailer (30%) Record label (30%). • While these figures are an approximation, they come pretty close to the real thing. Now let’s put this to work. Again these are all approximated numbers, but you’ll get the idea. • Let’s say your CD is for sale for in stores at $16. 00 and that you are a band of 4 that also writes their own material. Your deal is to receive a royalty rate of 11%, but your producer takes 3% of that. So in the end you make 8% net royalty. $16. 00 – $8. 32 (30% for retailers, 22% for distributors) = $7. 68.

Rolling Stones Magazine June 8, 2016 Western music is made up of just 12 notes, which yield a practically infinite number of songs. That’s theory, at least. It’s only natural that composers mimic what’s been successful in the past, but as Robin Thicke and Pharrell learned the hard way, there’s a blurred line between inspiration and theft. And musical copyright continues to be a hot-button issue, affecting everyone from Madonna, Justin Bieber, Ed Sheeran and Lana Del Rey to the mighty Led Zeppelin. Read on for one of the most infamous copyright infringement cases in pop music history. From lyrical lifts and unlicensed sampling, to melodies that sound just a tad too similar, there are many points of contention. Are the original artists looking out for their intellectual property or their bank balance? The jury is out. "Ice Baby, " by Vanilla Ice (1989) vs. "Under Pressure, " by Queen, David Bowie (1981) Under Pressure Ice Baby The Case: To anyone with functional eardrums, it's clear that Vanilla Ice's pop-rap crossover hit sampled the bass line to the 1981 Queen/Bowie collaboration "Under Pressure. " But Ice famously insisted that the two melodies are distinct because he added a beat between notes. Ice later claimed that this rationale was merely a joke. Representatives for Queen and Bowie weren't laughing and threatened a copyright infringement suit. The Verdict: The case was settled out of court, costing Ice an undisclosed sum and earning him a not-insignificant amount of public scorn. Bowie and members of Queen all received songwriting credits on the track. Why It Matters: "Ice Baby" sparked discussion about the punitive actions taken in plagiarism cases. While copyright laws do a fair job of protecting the financial interests of artists, there are fewer measures in place to protect their creative interests. In this instance, Vanilla Ice willfully used a classic hook without permission. Though he paid the price, some argue that isn't enough to make up for the potential credibility lost by Queen and David Bowie, who are now linked to him through a collaboration they had no choice in joining.

HOW MICKEY MOUSE KEEPS CHANGING COPYRIGHT LAW When the Copyright Act was first enacted in the United States, the copyright duration was only 14 years. Today Copyright duration can last over a century in some cases. Why such a drastic change? Some say it is all due to a cute little mouse named Mickey. Steamboat Willie

The lovable rodent, who sports bright red shorts, a pair of gigantic yellow shoes, and circular ears, has achieved, in his 87 years, what no other animated character has: He has won an Academy Award. He has spawned social clubs, theme parks, and every piece of merchandise imaginable. He has a worldwide brand awareness of 97% -- higher than Santa Claus. For his efforts, Forbes has dubbed him the world’s “richest fictional billionaire, ” placing his estimated worth to Disney at $5. 8 billion per year.

• For Disney, Mickey Mouse is not just a huge money maker, but the company’s most coveted piece of intellectual property. Mickey is Disney, and Disney is Mickey: the two are simply one and the same, and nothing is more important to Disney than his well-being. (“I love Mickey Mouse more than any woman I have ever known, ” Walt Disney once famously said). • For this reason, Disney has done everything in its power to make sure it retains the copyright on Mickey -- even if that means changing federal statutes. Every time Mickey’s copyright is about to expire, Disney spends millions lobbying Congress for extensions, and trading campaign contributions for legislative support. With crushing legal force, they’ve squelched anyone who attempts to disagree with them.

In the age of the Internet, where vast swaths of creative material are freely available, the central question raised by Mickey Mouse’s copyright ordeal is especially pertinent: Which is more important, a robust public domain, or the well-being of private interests?

The Invention of Mickey Mouse Three and a half years after founding his Los Angeles animation studio, Walt Disney was approached by his distributor, Charles Mintz, with an opportunity: Universal Studios was looking for a cartoon character. Disney, who had only enjoyed moderate success up to that point and was still an unknown in the animation world, happily took the job. In the early months of 1927, the 26 -year-old Disney, along with his chief animator Ub Iwerks, designed Oswald the Lucky Rabbit -- a rather saucy, anthropomorphic creature -- and Mintz inked the deal with Universal. Oswald became a huge hit, and as a result, Walt Disney Studios balooned to 20 employees.

In 1928, at the peak of Oswald’s success, Mintz went behind Disney’s back, stealing away nearly his entire animation team and re-signing them to a contract with Universal. When Disney’s own contract with Mintz expired, he found himself stripped of not only his creation, but of his staff of animators. In the process, Disney learned a valuable lesson: he had to “always make sure that [he] owned all rights to the characters produced by [his] company. ” “All he could say, over and over, was that he'd never work for anyone again as long as he lived, ” later recalled his wife, Lillian. “He'd be his own boss. ”

Several months later, Disney and Ub Iwerks, who’d stayed loyal to him as an animator, hit the drawing board. In Disney’s own account, Mickey Mouse was conceived out of desperation: "We had to create a new character in a hurry to survive. And find a market for it. We canvassed all the animal characters we thought suitable for the movie fable fashion of the time. All the good ones—the ones that would have instant appeal and would be comparatively easy to draw— seemed to have been pre-empted by the other companies in the cartoon animal field. Finally, a mouse was suggested, debated and put on the drawing boards as the best bet. That was Mickey. "

• On November 18, 1928, Mickey Mouse made his official debut, in an animated short called “Steamboat Willie. ” Within five years, he became Hollywood’s inanimate poster child, raking in nearly $1 million a year ($18 million in 2015 dollars) in merchandise sales, soliciting Academy Award nominations, and inspiring children around the world. • Having learned from his distributor’s previous betrayal, Disney clung to Mickey with an iron grip. But like all fictional characters, Mickey faced an imminent future in the public domain -- didn’t he?

Copyright law in America long predated Mickey Mouse. The first of these laws, the Copyright Act of 1790, stipulated that creative works were entitled to up to 28 years of protection (14 years, plus an additional “renewal” period of 14 years, supposing the original hadn’t died). This was followed by an 1831 act, which extended the copyright period to a max of 42 years, and a 1909 act, which elongated that period again, to 56 years. As the Art Law Journal clarifies, “very few works actually maintained [these] copyright durations”: only a fraction of those who secured copyrights protected them, or opted to renew them. Mickey Mouse was brought into the world in 1928, under the 1909 Copyright Act, entitling him to 56 years of protection under the law -- no more. In accordance with the law, his copyright was set to expire in 1984.

As this date drew near, Disney (the corporation) grew increasingly anxious. By this time, Mickey was worth billions in annual revenue, and had become the face of the company; losing him to the public domain would be a massive financial blow. Quietly, Disney took to Washington and began lobbying Congress for new copyright legislation.

Disney’s efforts, and those of other multinational corporations with soon-expiring intellectual property, seem to have paid off. In 1976 -- just 8 years prior to Mickey’s expiration -- Congress completely overhauled U. S. copyright law to conform with European standards. This new law expanded already-published corporate copyrights from 56 years to a maximum of 75 years. All works published prior to 1922 immediately entered the public domain; all works published after 1922 (including Mickey Mouse) were entitled to the full 75 years of protection. Just like that, Mickey Mouse extended his copyright death 19 years -- from 1984 to 2003.

• By the mid-1990 s, Disney again began to feel the impending doom. In addition to the 2003 expiration of Mickey’s copyright, Pluto was set to expire in 2005, Goofy in 2007, and Donald Duck in 2009. The gang, collectively worth billions, had to be retained, so Disney began lobbying again. • In 1997, Congress introduced the Copyright Term Extension Act, which proposed to extend corporate copyrights again -- this time, from 75 to 95 years. To ensure the bill passed, Disney cozied up to legislators.

Watchdog records show that the Disney Political Action Committee (PAC) paid out a total of $149, 612 in direct campaign contributions to those considering the bill. Of the bill’s 25 sponsors (12 in the Senate, and 13 in the House), 19 received money from Disney’s CEO, Michael Eisner. In one instance, Eisner paid Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R -MS) $1, 000 on the very same day that he signed on as a co-sponsor.

• "We regard our lobbying as proprietary to us, ” Disney spokesman Thomas J. Deegan stated, when confronted by CNN in 1998. “We don't wish to talk about it. " • While it is impossible to say for certain whether or not Disney’s efforts directly impacted politics, the results heavily worked out in their favor: the bill quietly and unanimously passed in the House and Senate with no public hearings, no debate, no notice to the public, and no roll call.

With only 5 years left on Mickey Mouse’s copyright term, Congress again changed the duration with the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998. This legislation lengthens copyrights for works created on or after January 1, 1978, to “life of the author plus 70 years, ” and extends copyrights for corporate works to 95 years from the year of first publication, or 120 years from the year of creation, whichever expires first. That pushed Mickey’s copyright protection out to 2023. In the entire congressional committee, only one man -- Senator Hank Brown -- opposed the bill. "The real incentive [was] for corporate owners that bought copyrights to lobby Congress for another 20 years of revenue, ” he later said. "I thought it was a moral outrage. There wasn't anyone speaking out for the public interest. "

• Years later, in the wake of the 1998 Extension Act, Eric Eldred, an Internet publisher who published works in the public domain, decided to “[challenge] the constitutionality of retroactively extending copyright terms. ” Eldred’s counsel argued that Congress’ power to expend copyrights invalidated the Constitution’s claim that copyrights can only be valid for a “limited” time. • In 2003, the case went all the way to the U. S. Supreme Court. But despite mounting support from the public to overturn the extension act, the court upheld it. In the opinion of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the language set forth in the Constitution -- that the role of the copyright was to “promote the progress of science and useful arts" -- did not limit the power of Congress to change the law.

• Today, Congress can change the copyright term whenever it sees fit, making it entirely possible that Mickey Mouse’s copyright will be extended again before 2023. But should it? Does Disney’s cajoling of the law serve any positive benefits to society at large, or does it merely further enforce the repertoire of private interests? • Those in favor of copyright extensions generally fall back on three major arguments: 1) Lengthy copyrights are necessary to incentivize the creation of new works; 2) Copyrighted works are an important source of income -- not just to copyright holders, but the U. S. at large; and, 3) Copyrights were originally intended to provide income for two generations of descendants; since human lifespan has increased since the original copyright bill in 1790, the copyright term should be appropriately elongated.

• Ultimately, none of this may matter: Even if Mickey’s copyright does expire in 2023, Disney has no less than 19 trademarks on the words “Mickey Mouse” (ranging from television shows and cartoon strips to theme parks and videogames) that could shield him from public use. • While a copyright protects works of art from being manipulated by the public, a trademark “protects words, phrases and symbols used to identify the source of the products or services. ”

According a precedent set in a 1979 court case, a trademark can protect a character in the public domain as long as that character has obtained what is called “secondary meaning. ” This means that the character and the company are virtually inseparable: upon seeing it, one will immediately identify it with a brand. Copyright lawyer Stephen Carlisle contends that Mickey Mouse would meet this qualification with flying colors, should he need to: “Disney has made Mickey Mouse so prominent in all of their corporate dealings, that he is effectively the pre-eminent symbol of the Walt Disney Company. There can be little doubt that anyone seeing the image of Mickey Mouse (or even his silhouette), immediately thinks of Disney. ” In other words, Disney has ingrained Mickey Mouse so deeply in its corporate identity that the character is essentially afforded legal protection for eternity, so long as Disney protects him (trademarks last indefinitely, so long as they are renewed).

Copyright Duration and the Mickey Mouse Curve The chart above illustrates the “Mickey Mouse Curve, ” showing how copyright duration has changed close to each time Mickey Mouse is about to expire.

Not everybody has been happy about these changes due to our inability to use old work to create new artistic works. One author noted that we are “the first generation to deny our own culture to ourselves” since “no work created during your lifetime will, without conscious action by its creator, become available for you to build upon. ”

What would you do with Steamboat Willie’s Mickey Mouse if it enters the public domain?

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