Artist's guide to public domain in Canada

[sirouhei]

A very useful document for any canadian VJ who samples a lot. As I understand it it's everything you need to know about public domain AV material.

http://www.sawvideo.com/resources/Artists_guide_to_Public_Domain_at_LAC.pdf

[evomedia]

Well its a document, but its not aimed at VJ's or commercial performance,

Public domain itself ONLY allows use of PD material in a non-commercial way, its only the copyright owner that can grant commercial or performance usage rights, thats means if your a VJ and charging for you playout you are still breaking the terms of usage unless you specifically have contacted the creator or explicitly states its cleared for commercial usage. If the public domain site specifically states it allows commercial usage your safe, the only time PD is ok commercially is when the copyright has actually expired.

For info as a guide: Copyright for film expires 70 years after the end of the year in which the death occurs of the last to survive of the principal director, the authors of the screenplay and dialogue, and the composer of any music specially created for the film. And copyright for broadcast expires 50 years from the end of the year of making of the broadcast.. So the vast majority of video and film work wont hit true free usage for many years

Public domain as a term means nothing in a commercial VJ sense, it offers absolutely no legal copyright protection or performance rights unless specifically stated. If your using commercially you still have to contact the copyright owner even if its public domain, and as such the time involved offers almost no advantages over just paying a few quid to buy stock video from somewhere like revostock or istock.

Non-commercial Reproduction
Information on this Web site has been posted with the intent that it be readily available for personal or public non-commercial use

The site states all over the place that users must obtain written permission from the copyright owners prior to reproducing the material.

[sirouhei]

Heh, I must admit I gave the whole thing a pretty quick glance. I got too excited, I guess.

Thanks for clarifying a few things though.

[{VJPortal}]

Welcome to the wild world of international copyright law. :)

What evomedia is saying is correct under U.K. copyright law, but the low-level nuances of the law are not the same in Canada.

In Canada, for a content owner to leverage full control over how their original content is used in any context (be it commercial or otherwise), the amount of use of the source material by the "copier" must fit the Copyright Act of Canada definition of "Substantial Part".

There is Canadian court jurisprudence around audio sampling which strongly suggests a 6-10 second video clip from published, widely distributed work is legal to copy and publically perform in Canada as long as the content is not "widely recognizable" to its original source (e.g. not an image of Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt) and does not present the material in its original context, nor denigrates the original work.

[stickygreen]

but lets not forget, whats right in the courts eye, isn't the only thing to affect you. if someone feels that you have infringed on there copyright, and decides to take legal action, it's you that needs to fund your defense. and with the court system the rich always seem to win.

[{VJPortal}]

Fortunately, the suit actor needs to convince the court to issue the subpoena first before you need to worry about legal defense costs. :)