SCM350 Individual Project Unit 3

Copyright law of 1974

Name of student

Name of institution

Name of instructor

The copyright law of 1974

Copyright law of 1974 is a law that was enacted to protect original creators of content through any platform. The manner in which one makes use of content belonging to another person is defined within this law. Every person who decided to hire the content is expected to inform the owner of the content that they intend to use it and for what reason that they are going to use it. The copyright law has several sections dealing with the copyright of different materials that can be found within the internet. One of them being videos, the rules that govern how people make use of videos produced by other is available.

In this case, the manager seeks to get clarification on whether it will be a good idea for the subcontractor to include the name of the company as a client. Marketing on the internet can b done by the use of videos depending on the nature of the video. There are cases when one can make use of a video without necessarily having to contact the owner of the video. The manager is definitely worried that the mention of the company name might result to negative results in case of a lawsuit against the user of the video. The subcontractor can be sued by the owner of the video in a case where the owner feels that the video was used without his or her permission.

Circumstances under which videos are subject to the copyright law

Videos on the internet are subject to the copyright law of 1974 under different circumstances. The first circumstance is when the video is copyrighted by the owner. There are videos whose owners are known because they decided to copyright them. For anyone to use such videos, they have to market the owner’s failure to which they can face a lawsuit. Another circumstance is when the video is question has been meant for a certain purpose. Such videos are maybe intended to market a certain idea and do not require any form of interruption. Marketing on such videos means that one will have to interrupt the videos for sometime so that they can air their advert. Videos are also subject to copyright when they belong to a certain organization. Different organization deal in different things and it will not be appropriate to market on such videos without the permission of the company.

How ‘use’ mentioned in the copyright law can justify the use of the video in marketing

There are ways in which one can use videos on the internet to market their businesses without any fear of facing a lawsuit. The first way in which one can justify the use of a video is by asking for permission from the creator of the video. Some authors just require one to ask for permission before they go ahead to use the video in their marketing. In such a case, the subcontractor can make use of the video after contacting the owner of the video failure to which they might end up facing a lawsuit. There are other videos that do not require permission. In such a case, one has the opportunity to use them to market their businesses without necessarily asking for permission from the creator of such content. Public licensed works fall in this category. These are videos that are meant for the public and any person is allowed to market on them without asking for permission from the creator of the content. There are many videos that are public licensed and anyone can use in case they feel that they are the best for their marketing purpose.

The rights of users and copyright holders also determine whether the videos can be used for marketing or not. On the part of the copyright holders, the videos used in this case should fall within the rights they have. The process should not in any way lead to alteration of the content, reproduction or even cutting off of sections of the videos. For the users, they also have to ensure that they observe the ‘fair use’ in the videos section. There is a manner in which the videos should be used by the users so that the owners do not feel that they are disadvantaged. When the subcontractor decides to use any of the options within the usage clause, they have to be sure that they can justify the use of the video. Otherwise, they will be forced to pay the copyright holder in case of a lawsuit against them.

Options that the subcontractor can use to ensure no violation of copyright laws

To avoid violating the copyright laws, there are different ways that the subcontractor can use. They include the following:

The subcontractor can make use of the public licensed videos which do not require any permission to use. They are in the public domain to be used for such purposes and no one can sue the subcontractor for using them.

The subcontractor can decide to ask for permission from the copyright holder before going ahead to make use of the video in marketing.

Another option that the subcontractor can go for is going for the “Make for hire” videos. These are videos that have a lot of views and are meant to be hired by marketers who want to sell their services through the video. They can pay for the video before posting the advertisement on the video.

References

Bryan M. Carson. Basic Copyright Exceptions for Educators. Bowling Green, Kentucky: Faculty Center for Excellence in Teaching, Western Kentucky University, 2013. http://works.bepress.com/bryan_carson/57. Retrieved December 2, 2015.

Margoni & Perry (2012). "Ownership in Complex Authorship: A Comparative Study of Joint Works". ssrn: 16. SSRN 1992610.

 Richard H. Jones. The Myth of the Idea/Expression Dichotomy in Copyright Law. 10 Pace Law Review 551 (1990). http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/plr/vol10/iss3/1. Retrieved December 2, 2015.