Features
Legal aid
Copyright is a concept that's often referred to but rarely well understood. From the lowliest student to the biggest design agency, we're all protected by it - and we all risk infringing it. Here, we'll look at the implications of copyright for 2D design. Photographers and writers should be aware there are further copyright and other issues in their fields, while product and packaging designers must consider design rights and patents laws.
Copyright exists in original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works, published editions of such works, sound recordings, films and broadcasts. 'Original' just means something is the result of independent creative effort - it may be quite similar to things that already exist, it may lack any artistic or intellectual merit and it may even have been created quite mechanically, as with a database compiled from other databases.
There's no requirement in the UK to register works or to mark them with a copyright symbol or date of first publication. Doing so can help clarify your rights later, however, and may be essential to activate protection in countries outside Western Europe, the US and Russia. Work originated in most foreign countries is automatically protected in the UK. Copyright lasts until 70 years after the death of the author or artist (with shorter periods for recordings, films and the design of published editions).
Not all kinds of design work are protected. The largest exception is the design of objects, which isn't covered by copyright but by 'design right'. The details are beyond the scope of
|
|
|
ADVERTISEMENT |
|
Copyright only protects the work itself, not the ideas behind it. This can be a fine line, but it means your brilliant dotcom concept, for example, can be imitated by someone else as long as they don't copy your actual site design. If your Web site was online first, you might still be able to take action for 'passing off', the common-law tort of making your own work look like someone else's to take advantage of goodwill that rightfully belongs to them. Similarly, names and slogans aren't usually covered by copyright, but can sometimes be registered as trademarks. This protection isn't automatic, and it's no good writing 'TM' after a phrase unless you've registered it. See www.intellectual-property.gov.uk/std/resources/trade_marks/ for details.
Finally, the medium in which works are stored or reproduced generally has no implication for copyright. Copying something from the Internet isn't any different to copying it from paper.
Owning copyright
It will be clear from the above that most work by 2D designers automatically attracts copyright. But it may not be the designer who owns it. Copyright in anything you create in the course of employment normally belongs to your employer. When you're commissioned by someone who isn't your employer, the first right to the work remains with you, while the client gains a limited licence to reproduce it. The exact terms of this licence are up to you and the client to agree (see Using copyrighted material, below).
