The Century Times

Yes, I am often confused about the copyright issues when writing content for my blog. Exactly to what extent can someone’s content be used to develop our own content is very confusing. And the more I study & research on the issue, the more confused I get!

Even copyright laws have gone archaic in this digital age. But strangely enough, legal expertise is not easy to find on this issue. A couple of years back, I was in Dehradun (a state capital in India) and looked for an legal expert on IPR & copyright issues  at the local bar council. Strangely I wasn’t able to locate any and was advised by some counsellors to go to delhi for the same attributing it to be a complex issue. I discussed the questions at open forums online and got all sorts of confusing answers. After giving their advice, everyone will add that you should confirm it with some attorney with expertize in this domain. PubLaw has a good coverage on it with this fine print, I have also tried to understand Creative Commons License many times. But some how nothing gets into my mind.

Around a couple of months back I met Rahi who used to take help for expanding his ideas on his blog from newspapers’ & magazines’ articles. He was advised by someone to restrain from it and he agreed to it. But I find nothing wrong when he still continues the same way. Another friend Archet writes more than a dozen blogs based on all stolen content. But as Dilbert puts it, intangibles can’t be stolen!

One of my friends Ashok got scared of these practices of freely using anyone’s personal flickr photographs and now he restrain himself from using these sites for creating personal albums. The assumption that whatever available on the Internet is in public domain and hence free for use by everyone is hurting sentiments of many and changing their online behaviour. Today I know many people who dare not to share their personal or family photographs through online webspaces. They fear their possible illicit usage.

Last month I met Priyanka of TwilightFairy who has fought with the country’s biggest media conglomerate for stealing a photograph taken by her. I was really impressed with her account and the struggle & odds she faced to get the credit for her photograph. Yes, she was successful in winning the battle and was compensated a meager Rs. 10,000/- by The Times of India for using a Flickr photograph taken by her without her permission.

She showed the copy of Whats Hot supplement of The Times of India, in which the corrigendum for the same was published a day back on 19th September,2008. But unfortunately, it was also a mutual settlement case and not the actual legal battle.  And strangely there are people commenting against her too!

When we are not using any art work and only using the information or the news, it is also said to be a case of plagiarism! But how can you attribute a news to an original source, as it is almost the same in several media! And what more when we compile a news or information referring multiple media, its difficult to attribute it to all. Some people says attribution is enough but others say, attribution should not be without permission of the original publisher. And if we try to get the permission from all sources, probably it will be too late to publish that piece and we will have to leave it altogether as it losses its relevance. So the end result will be that our readers will be left poorer without that piece of news. Will it be fair for them. I agree with the argument that no one is entitled to earn any money out of others’ efforts but is it fair if we are not using it to make money? If one is not making money, what about her non-monetary gains like goodwill, fan-following, etc. Now it seems unfair too.

One person at the last months’ tweet up meet at Delhi (unfortunately I forgot his name),  told that one U.S.A. entity had taken his permission and offered him good greenbacks for using their own building’s photograph and this despite his mentioning that his photographs are free for anyone’s use. How strange! Seems every one is scared of the confusing laws about plagiarism and its definition. And surprisingly, super rich people and organizations are more likely to foot a bigger compensation bill than their poorer counterparts committing the same crime! So is it that I shouldn’t care for anything called plagiarism as I am too poor to compensate anyone?

Technorati Tags: Plagiarism, copyright, IPR