Know your copying rights

Although John Key announced a delay to the introduction of S92a yesterday we should all know our copy rights. Copyright in New Zealand covers everything from 'All rights reserved' to Public Domain or 'No rights reserved'.

Here's a basic run down of the different licenses...

All rights reserved (from Copyright Licensing Ltd )
The Owners of copyright (writers, artists, composers etc) have the exclusive right to:
- copy their work;
- publish their work;
- perform their work in public;
- communicate the work to the public;
- adapt the work (eg. by making a translation or dramatised version.)

It doesn't mean that you can't use the information, just that you have to clear it with the copyright holder first.

Public Domain/No rights reserved (from Copyright Licensing Ltd )
Users can freely reproduce, distribute, communicate, use, modify, build upon, or otherwise exploit this content for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, and in any way.

Crown copyright (from New Zealand Government Web Standards)

Anyone can utilise any of the material available on the web site free of charge and without permission of the agency provided that:
The material is not altered
The source and copyright status of the material is acknowledged.

No known copyright restrictions. (from Kete Digital New Zealand )

No known copyright restrictions indicates that the content provider is unaware of any current copyright restrictions on the content. This may be because the term of copyright for the content (or work) has expired, or because no evidence has been found that copyright restrictions apply. (The National Library of New Zealand have applied this to their photos in The Commons on Flickr.)

Creative Commons licenses fall in between the two extremes of 'all' and 'no' rights reserved. (Some of our Flickr photos are licensed under a Creative Commons license.) Here are the definitions from the site.

Attribution (BY):
This licence lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as longas they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licences offered, in terms of what others can do with your works licensed under Attribution.

Attribution-Noncommercial (BY-NC):
This licence lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works (BY-NC-ND):
This licence is the most restrictive of our six main licences, allowing redistribution. This licence is often called the “free advertising” licence because it allows others to download your works and share them with others as long as they mention you and link back to you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.

Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike (BY-NC-SA)
This licence lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. Others can download and redistribute your work just like the BY-ND-SA licence, but they can also translate, make remixes, and produce new stories based on your work. All new work based on yours will carry the same licence, so any derivatives will also be non-commercial in nature.

Attribution-No Derivative Works (BY-ND)
This licence allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you.

Attribution-Share Alike (BY-SA)
This licence lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial reasons, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This licence is often compared to open source software licences. All new works based on yours will carry the same licence, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use.


Here are several useful websites that further explain copyright:
Copyright Licensing Ltd
Creative Commons Aotearoa New Zealand
Kete Digital New Zealand - Rights and Permissions help
The Ministry of Economic Development - Copyright Protection in New Zealand
New Zealand Government Web Standards

Update on changes to copyright law in New Zealand

As I posted last month, an amendment to the Copyright Act 1994, Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Act was passed into law last year. Here's an update on what's been going on.

Section 92A of the Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Act comes into play on February 28 2009. The Telecommunications Carriers’ Forum released a Draft ISP Copyright Code of Practice a couple of weeks ago which provides guidelines for ISPs, copyright holders and internet users on what process to follow. It's open for public consultation until Friday, 6 March 2009.
The draft code recommends that after three Education Notices (which users can Counter-Notice against) the fourth infringement or copyright breach means termination of access. Downstream ISPs won't have their access terminated because one of their customers has breached copyright. (So in my example last time, the internet cafe owner would still have a business and the library will still be able to provide public internet access.)

The Creative Freedom Foundation has organised an internet blackout where people against the new law have been changing their internet icons to a black box. This has caused some confusion on social networking sites where the blacked out icons look quite imposing. (Even Stephen Fry has joined in.) They have organised a public demonstration in parliament grounds today. At 12.30pm, as part of the demonstration, CFF Director Bronwyn Holloway-Smith will present the petition to the government via Hon Peter Dunne of United Future. There is even a theme song.

Ernie Newman, the Chief Executive, has been musing about the law in his TUANZ hosted blog.

Despite all the protests it's unlikely that the introduction of the law will be delayed. Breaching copyright is against the law now and it will be against the law in the future. It's important that we're all aware of what our rights and responsibilities are with regards to copyright. I'll be posting on the various licences available to New Zealanders next Tuesday.