#6 Copyright and Fair Use

 Copyright and Fair Use

The term copyright is something I believe most individuals today are familiar with. Most of us have probably experienced posting a video on social media and how it quickly got taken down due to copyright for the music being used in the video. We stumble on copyright every now and then in different situations, especially in social media. When it comes to the term fair use, I was not very aware of what exactly that meant before I did some research on the topic. 

Fair Use is a doctrine of US Copyright Law, which allows limited use of material being copyrighted, without permission required from the copyright holder. This principle is based on the belief that the public should be allowed to use some proportions of copyrighted materials for purposes of commentary and criticism. While criticizing a novelist, for example, you should be able to quote a part of the novelist's work without asking for permission to do so. If the copyright owner disagrees with the way you use the fair use interpretation, the dispute may end up as a lawsuit or arbitration. If it gets labeled as not being a fair use, it means that you are infringing upon the rights of the copyright owner and you may be liable for damages. 

There can be found many copyright cases within the music industry. The music being created by songwriters and artists is legally protected by copyright, but there have still been many cases of plagiarism and copyright scandals within the music industry. 

One example of this is the  Chuck Berry vs. John Lennon case, where the 1969 Beatles song "Come Together" by John Lennon was said to have plagiarized the song "You Can't Catch Me" by Chuck Berry that was released in 1956. What was said to have been done was that the "Come Together" song was being slowed down and therefore giving the song a funkier arrangement than the original. It was Berry's publisher, which also was the owner of Big Seven Music, who started the legal proceedings in this case. The case was being settled out of court to an undisclosed amount, and also a promise from Lennon himself to record three songs from Berry's catalog on his record. Lennon ended up only recording two songs and was found in breach of the contract so he ended up having to pay Levy $6,795. 

As I mentioned in the beginning, cases of copyright can be found in social media as well. Jack Schroeder and Britni Sumida sued Volvo after they used images from their photo shoot, to which Volvo responded by dismissing the complaint as they argued that Schroeder granted an implied license by simply posting the photos on Instagram. After the photos were posted on Instagram, Volvo's account tried to reach out to Schroeder asking for permission to use the images but without compensation. Shroeder refused this offer and emailed them to see if they would be interested in licensing his images, without ever getting any answer. Later he found his photos being posted by Volvo, without having permission to do so. Both parties agreed to a settlement that ended up dismissing the lawsuit being filed in June 2020. 

In my opinion, I believe that copyright can be kind of tricky when there are individuals believing they have more rights to use someone else's materials than they actually have. The topic of copy right should be brought up more as a problem and it should be taken more seriously, at least that's what I think.