CopyDiva

Two weeks ago, at the Mile High Social Media Club, we hosted a great panel on rights management and the social media impacts on it. We had two lawyers and a photographer on the panel, so we were able to look at it both from the creative artist’s perspective as well as the legal one. What was most fascinating to me  is just how little people really know about protecting copyright (what you can do to protect rights to original works), about rights to use (what you can legally use for free without getting in trouble).

Back when I was younger, I actually took a class on copyright and trademarks that was taught by a corporate attorney. As a young marketer, it was very helpful to get an understanding of the law, and understand what exactly you can protect and what you cannot. Of course, that was before the Internet, the web, and social sharing of information. Still, I think its pretty helpful for people to understand some pretty basic things before you go and use someone else’s information, pictures, artwork, etc:

1. Just because you found it on Flickr, doesn’t mean you can use it. People load pictures up on to web sites like Flickr but that doesn’t mean you can download them, put them on your blog or in your next powerpoint presentation. You have to ask, get permission, heck, you might even have to pay someone. Check the FAQ or terms of service to understand what you are getting yourself into.

2. There’s nothing wrong with paying a few bucks to use a photo from iStockPhoto or some place like that. At my company, Kutenda, we purchase photos we want to use in email marketing campaigns as well as blog posts. It is nice to use photos in blog posts, just make sure you have the right permission to use it. You may not think that your company or your personal blog isn’t important enough for someone to find it (and discover you are using something without permission), but you’d be surprised.

3. Don’t forget, music is copyright protected too. Loading up a video on YouTube? Don’t think you can just use a track off your iTunes – your iTunes license doesn’t grant you the right to use that track of music for anything other than your personal use. Loading a video with that track on YouTube is outside that use criteria. At the least, YouTube will pull it down. Do yourself a favor — get GarageBand and make up an original song instead.

4. Use something that is under Creative Commons licensing: People who license with creative commons are doing it because it encourages collaboration. You can do a search at the creative commons web site to find works that you can use (there are different types of licenses, some allow for any use, so just for non-commercial use, etc.). Here is a FAQ that explains more about how the licenses work.