Copyright – a powerful legal right protecting your intellectual property
Copyright is a valuable intellectual property right and it does not require to be registered except in certain specific circumstances – eg illustrated in the case referred to below. Copyright can arise in text (books, lyrics), photographs, and music. But importantly, it can also arise in technical drawings, software, websites, databases, brochures, business plans and so on. It generally does not matter if the copyright ‘work’ in question is a hard copy version or an electronic one. The important thing is that there is a record of the ‘work’.
Copyright law in most countries is based on international agreed norms. But each country will have put those norms into practice in their own way. This means that whether you have copyright or not will depend on the county (ie the legal jurisdiction) where copying of the copyright ‘work’ (eg software, brochure, photograph etc.) has occurred.
A recent case in the US is a reminder of how effective copyright can be a protecting things you have created.
Dua Lipa is being sued in California, USA for allegedly posting a paparazzi photograph of herself on social media. So the copyright law will be the law of the State of California.
Integral Images took the photograph in February 2019 and applied to copyright it. So here is an example of need to register copyright. This was granted in February 2020.
Dua Lipa posted the image on her Instagram account without permission of Integral Images which owned the copyright. Integral claims that the singer knowingly shared the photograph with her 68.8 million social media followers and is seeking damages of £108k plus costs and an order preventing the artist from using the photograph again.
The copyright law in question in the US says that the default owner of copyright in a photograph is the photographer. This means that the photographer and not the subject owns the intellectual property in the picture. The subject of the picture does not have any rights to the photograph so long as it was taken in a public place. The penalties for infringement can be steep—substantial damages plus legal fees and loss of profit.
This is the latest such action against a celebrity. Photo agencies are increasingly pursuing legal action against celebrities who use paparazzi images without permission. Jennifer Lopez, Gigi Hadid, 50 Cent, Jessica Simpson, and Khloé Kardashian have all previously found that they do not actually own photos of themselves and so have no right to post the picture on social media.
Paparazzi and photo agencies generate significant income from selling such pictures. The licencing fees are significantly reduced if the star has already posted the picture on their own social media.
July 2021
