The Program Works

Ethics and Responsibility

The land of law, ethics and responsibility.

Copyright, public domain and fair use.

• Internet, magazines and newspapers provide ample opportunity for staffs to pluck images, logos and information for their own use

• It is illegal for staffs to use this work because of copyright laws

• Copyright laws protect the intellectual property of those who create and own the work

• Taking and using the work of others is similar to plagiarism

Creativity has ownership.

• Copyright laws exist to prevent the unauthorized use of intellectual property

• Intellectual property includes original works such as literary works, movies, music or sound recordings, paintings or photographs

• Yearbook staffs cannot use something that has been created by others simply because they can access it

• Copyright law provides protection for individuals for their lifetime plus 70 years

• Copyright laws protects corporate owners even longer

Creativity has ownership.

• What yearbook staffs cannot use:– Photographs of celebrities from the Internet, newspapers or

magazines– Cartoon characters still under copyright– Music lyrics from current songs– Text from poetry, novels, short stories or other intellectual

property that is still under copyright

What’s OK to use?

• Older works that are in public domain• Public domain means that no one has ownership of these

properties• Examples of work in public domain are:

– The works of William Shakespeare– The artwork of Vincent van Gogh– The inventions of Thomas Edison

• Examples of works that are not in public domain (can only be used with specific permission) are:– Songs written by the Beatles– Photographs by current photographer Annie Liebovitz

What’s OK to use?

• To use copyrighted material, the staff must request and be given permission to use the material

• Saying that the material is copyrighted by TIME magazine or Counting Crows is not enough

• Using “courtesy of” is not permission

What’s OK to use?

• Disney owns the images of all the characters it has developed as well as the concept for its theme parks– No one may copy its rides or the names of those rides– Others may create theme parks and have similar ideas but

they must be different enough that no one is confused– A yearbook staff cannot have Cinderella and her wicked

step-sisters and fairy godmother cavorting through their yearbook

– A yearbook staff can, however, use the words “It’s a small world” as long as it didn’t replicate the logo for the ride, use the characters in the ride or the words from the song

What’s OK to use?

• Words can be trademarked or registered– “Threepeat” is registered to NBA coach Pat Riley. Anyone

who uses it for commercial purposes is expected to pay Riley

– Chili’s “Get in. Get out. Get on with your life.” is registered o Use of the Chili’s chili pepper would be copyright infringemento Drawing your own chili would be OK

What’s OK to use?

• Students can create their own images as long as they are not too similar to the original ones– Staffs may create a mouse or a panther but they must be

different than Mickey or Minnie Mouse or the Pink Panther

What is acceptable use?

• Fair use allows for some limited use of copyrighted material– Use for educational purposes and for non-profit

organizations allows limited use in a reasonable way• A few lines of lyrics from a song could be considered

reasonable use• The use of a whole verse would probably be too much• Regardless of how much is used, the material must always be

credited

What is acceptable use?

• Copyrighted material may be used to illustrate a story• The debut of “Friday Night Lights” put Odessa Permian High

School in the limelight– To show the breadth of the coverage, the staff took pictures

of publication fronts and stories and ran them as graphics in the book

– No actual photos or stories from the original publications were run in the coverage

What is acceptable use?

• Fair use would allow a staff to take photos of CD covers to illustrate the top five CDs for the year

• Fair use would allow the covers of books to be used to show what the readings were for English classes

• In each of these cases, the images are being used to inform and complete the story

What is acceptable use?

• Photos in magazines, newspapers or on Web sites belong to the publisher or the photographer

• Web sites often have Terms of Use policies that tell how materials can be used

• Even without a Terms of Use policy, staffs do not have the right to use the information, graphics or elements

Student Activity

Visit the U. S. government Web site www.copyright.gov

Divide the staff into groups of three or four and have each

group research and explain what it learns about one of these

sections:

a. What is copyright?

b. What works are copyrighted?

c. What is not protected?

d. How long does copyright protections endure?

Student Activity

Have students use search engines to determine which sites for

the following are official and which are not:

a. James Bond

b. The Beatles

c. The Pink Panther

Student Activity

Write a policy for dealing with copyrighted materials and for

researching whether something is copyrighted.