Copyright Laws And Multimedia Projects Mrs. Petroccia Media Specialist Independence Middle

Copyright allows authors, musicians, artists, photographers and movie makers to make money off of their labor. It prevents other people and companies from taking and using the creator’s work for FREE! Copyright is a form of protection by laws to all creators of art, literature, music, motion pictures, choreographic works, and more.

What do you think would happen if artists, musicians, writers, and movie makers could NOT make $MONEY$ off of their talent and labor? Example: Each time a musician’s song is used in a commercial or movie, the artist gets a royalty payment. What if royalty payments didn’t exist?

Does the show Glee pay royalties to use other artist’s songs? The Palm Beach Post’s Parade Magazine on June 5, 2011 stated: “Rolling Stone reported in 2010 that the show pays an average of $15,000 to $30,000 per song, with the biggest names getting more.”

Would publishing companies have any monetary incentive to publish authors’ work? Would record companies produce and support bands and musicians? What would happen to the motion picture industry?

YOU have created poems, stories, perhaps wrote music, and created movies. Everything YOU have created is protected under the United States Copyright Laws even if your creations are not “published” works. Other people and companies can NOT use YOUR creations without asking for permission from you!

If you have “unpublished” stories, songs, movies, photos, art work that you want others to be sure to know this work belongs to you, you can, but it is not necessary, put a © symbol along with the date and your name. Example: © 2011 Stephanie Weber Your creations are called, Intellectual Property.

Now that you know all original creative works; music, literature, movies, art, photos, including YOURS is protected under Copyright Laws, it is important for you to ask permission to use other artists’ work.

If you plan to use an entire song for your project, you will need to contact the record company and ask for permission. In the letter, you need to state that your project is for educational purposes and you will not sell or profit monetarily.

However, you may use 10 percent of a song without permission according the Fair Use Copyright Guidelines. The Fair Use Guidelines were created for teachers and students to use portions of works for educational purposes only. Teachers and students can not use other people’s work for profit.

There is Royalty Free music available. Royalty Free means the owner of the music sold his music to the record company and does not get royalty payments each time the song is used. Go to iTunes and search: Royalty Free Music. Yes, you’ll pay for the song or album but you can use the entire song permission free on ANY multimedia project.

Copyright Free There are photos and video clips you may use without asking permission. These are called copyright free. If you Google search for “copyright free pictures” you’ll get several websites to choose from. You may also use any video or picture from World Book Online and DE Streaming database.

Citing Your Sources You will need to give credit to the sources you use whether they are copyright free or you were given permission. You do this by creating a “Bibliography” page or “Works Cited” page listing your citations.

To create a citation, go to website accessible through the Media Center Edline Page. In a movie, you may want to create a scrolling “Credits” page where all your citations are listed.