Copyrights

SAFEGUARDING COPYRIGHTS BEING DIFFICULT WITH CITIZEN JOURNALISM

With the outraging concept of citizen journalism, the difference between plagiarism and sharing content is getting blurred. Citizen Journalism is a phenomenon of the digital age. Modern advances in hardware and software have given the average citizen the ability to produce, reproduce and distribute their own and others’ content.

Mediadictionary.com defines copyright as:
“Legal ownership of a piece of intellectual property, protection by law against its theft or exploitation”
Generally, employees of media organizations own certain rights in relation to material they create for publication. Freelance journalists’ rights in relation to their work depend on their agreement with the publisher. Journalists also have moral rights in relation to their work.
Copyright protects a range of literary works written by journalists including:
• press articles;
• reports;
• scripts (such as for programs or commercials); and
• interviews

Most online magazines have a shared icon to Facebook, Twitter and a numberless other blogs, at the bottom of their articles. This allows many online writers to rationalize stealing and plagiarizing as sharing. Plagiarism generally means taking and using another person’s ideas, writing or inventions as your own. Plagiarism is not a legal term, and not all acts of plagiarism are necessarily infringements of copyright.

People can use copyright material for the purpose of criticism or review without infringing copyright, provided they acknowledge the author and title of the work. The criticism or review may relate to the work being used or to other material. For example, television film reviewers may show clips from other films as well as the one they are reviewing, in making their criticism or review.

Copyright material may be used in reporting news in a newspaper, magazine or similar periodical, or in a film, or by means of a broadcast. The author and title of the work must be acknowledged.

Owners of copyright in literary, artistic and dramatic works have the exclusive right to:
• reproduce the work
• communicate the work to the public
• publish the work
• recite or perform the work in public; and
• make a translation, a dramatised version or a picture version of the work (for instance a cartoon).

Regards,
Roshni Zahid