Patent Law

Five Ways to Minimize Risk of Copyright Liability from Citizen Media

By Les Weinstein, Michael Young, John Leo Wagner, Eric van Ginkel, and Victoria Pynchon

We've said this before:  prevention beats every dispute resolution mechanism available so long as you do not limit your own freedom out of fear of liability.  

That said, here are the top five tips for using copyrighted material fearlessly from the extraordinarily concise and helpful "Primer on Copyright Liability and Fair Use" from  the Citizen Media Law Project Blog.

While there is no definitive test for determining whether your use of another's copyrighted work is a fair use, there are several things you can do to minimize your risk of copyright liability:

• Use only as much of the copyrighted work as is necessary to accomplish your purpose or convey your message;
• Use the work in such a way that it is clear that your purpose is commentary, news reporting, or criticism;
• Add something new or beneficial (don't just copy it -- improve it!);
• If your source is nonfiction, limit your copying to the facts and data; and
• Seek out Creative Commons or other freely licensed works when such substitutions can be made and respect the attribution requests in those works.

Read the entire Primer here.

Full post as published by IP ADR Blog on February 14, 2008 (boomark / email).