Copyright Compliance: How to Legally Share Newsclips
As a PR professional, you monitor coverage of your business appearing online and in print. From time to time, you probably share some of this news with your management or colleagues. With the sharing of content made easier than ever, in the digital age publishers are increasingly determined to protect its distribution and use. Here are some tips to stay on the right side of copyright rules.
What is copyright?
Copyright is legal protection for original creative works. According to Title 17 of the U.S. Code, these works of authorship include:
- literary works, as well as articles from newspapers and magazines
- songs, including words and music
- plays and choreographed dance performances, with accompanying music
- art, including pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works
- motion pictures and other audiovisual works
- sound recording
- architectural works
Ideas, procedures, processes, systems, methods of operation, concepts, or principles, do not receive copyright protection. And contrary to popular belief, a work does not have to be registered with the U.S. Copyright Office in order to be copyrighted; copyright exists from the moment a work is completed.
Why free content isn't really free
Many magazines and newspapers have some or all of their content available online; and it’s possible to go to a doctor’s office or a library and read virtually any periodical for free. So why isn't the content free? The answer lies in the cost of production.
Reading is free, but writing isn’t. Staff and printing costs are substantial. Publishers of newspapers, magazines, and websites rely on advertising and subscription revenue to cover their costs and to make a profit. They need accurate circulation figures in order to price their products appropriately, just as a widget manufacturing company needs to know how many widgets they’ve produced and sold.
Which laws govern copyright?
Both the doctrine of fair use and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act affect the sharing of press clippings. Over the years, corporations – Texaco and Legg Mason among others – have been penalized for internal sharing of copyrighted information. More recently, the Software Information Industry Association (SIIA), a trade association enforcing copyright for the digital content industry, commented on the sharing of news content in a PRWeek Op-Ed column:
“Some people may believe that just about every PR department or firm would fall within our definition of "egregious offender."
We hope this is not the case – but we also believe that just because companies may have been engaging in these practices for years, that doesn't mean it's OK to turn a blind eye. Copying and mass distribution of copyrighted articles is a serious offense – it is stealing, just as much as using unlicensed software is stealing.”
Read the PRWeek column
Protecting yourself and your company
Most media content useful to businesses is copyrighted. In the majority of cases, you need to get permission from the copyright holder before re-using content. The following are some guidelines:
Seek copyright permission before you:
- Copy articles from magazines/newspapers and reproduce them for distribution at a trade show or in a sales packet
- Email an article to a large number of clients, prospects, colleagues, or friends
- Post an entire article on your website or intranet
- Use an entire article in an internal newsletter or blog
You generally don’t have to seek permission before you:
- Copy an excerpt of an article from magazines/newspapers and send it to a few coworkers or friends, or to the company law firm or PR agency
- Email an excerpt of an article to a small number of clients, prospects, colleagues, or friends
- Post an excerpt from an article on your website or intranet, and link to the original article
- Use an excerpt from an article in an internal newsletter or blog
A Turnkey Copyright Compliance Program
Fortunately, BurrellesLuce is already working to keep you and your company on the right side of the law. Our turnkey copyright compliance program makes it easy to spotlight your media relations results – while staying on the right side of copyright regulations.
Here’s how it works: We monitor thousands of publications, and we negotiate agreements with publishers, outlining how our clients can use the clips we find for them. On behalf of publishers, we collect a royalty fee for each article and for the average number of internal copies of that article our client makes. With this arrangement, our clients understand the value of the content, and the publishers are satisfied.
Going forward, this small fee buys you peace of mind and makes it easy for your business to operate using copyrighted material. Without such a program, PR professionals would need to contact each publisher to obtain the right to share the actual clips with managers and co-workers interested in the results of media relations efforts. Most PR professionals don’t have the time to devote to this effort.
About BurrellesLuce
At BurrellesLuce, our goal is to help media relations professionals maximize the benefits of their media relations programs, a continuous challenge given evolving communication channels. Whether it’s making it easier for you to target and connect with journalists and bloggers, monitor your print, web and broadcast media coverage, or measure the impact of media relations efforts, our single web-based platform enables your success.
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