In our week 3 lecture we learnt the about basic copyright laws, both in Australia and internationally. Essentially, in Australia copyright is automatic and this then means your work (in material form; ideas themselves are not included) is protected overseas.

According to Anne Lennox, the basics are:

– whoever created the work owns the work

– the work is protected by copyright for the duration of the creators life, plus an additional 70 years

– after this period, there are still moral rights (academic integrity) that require you to recognise that the work belongs to somebody else

– rules for work shared within closed environments (e.g. blogs that are password protected) are slightly different to public sharing

Of course, there are exceptions to each of the cases above and each instance may be treated differently depending on a range of factors.

A key point that was brought up concerned websites such as Pinterest and Tumblr, where people “reblog” or “pin” things they like, adding them to a page of their own. Given that user-generated data is often created with the intent of sharing, the workings of the law are quite complex in this situation.

A few more examples where the lines may be blurred and there are complex laws in place include: fan art, an fiction, Facebook sharing and Youtube videos (e.g. people at home creating and uploading covers of famous songs). Thus, today it is immeasurably important to adhere to copyright laws specific to the medium you are working in.

I was also fascinated by the fact that even if you gain permission to use a person’s work, the original creator can still ask you to remove your own adaptation from a public space if it is seen to reflect badly on them.

At the end of the day, according to Anne, “something must stand up in court as being creative enough” for you to argue that it was your original work.

It was very helpful to have all of these things outlined for us so early in the course, both so I am aware of how I will be expected to credit others, and so that I know what rights I have as a creator myself.

What I took away from this lecture was a better knowledge and understanding of things I need to look out for when I create something that builds on or incorporates others’ work. This is key within the context of the Media course and in my everyday life (e.g. Tumblr posts, background music in my edited videos, etc.).