Copyright

The Danger of Knowing for Sure: Common Misconceptions about Copyright and Ceremonies.

By Jennifer Cram.

© Jennifer Cram. All rights reserved.

One of my favourite quotes is from Artemus Ward who reminded us that It ain't so much the things we know that get us into trouble. It's the things we know that just ain't so. And this is never truer than when applied to celebrant understanding of copyright. As technology changes the same remarkably persistent misconceptions resurface again and again.

Copyright is an economic right to reproduce intellectual property.

Common misconceptions about copyright fall into three groups

• Misconceptions about the public domain
• Misconceptions what you must do to copyright a work
• Misconceptions about relevance of purpose of use.

Misconceptions about the public domain

What public domain means is that nobody owns any intellectual property rights over the work.

This includes:

• Material in which copyright never existed in the first place (quite possible, as the test of copyright is that it is an "original" work – so if the work did not reach the required threshold of originality, then it cannot be protected)
• Works which the copyright owner has deliberated placed in the public domain (this needs a 'no rights reserved' license or something similar)
• Older material in which copyright has expired (this can be difficult, copyright subsists in a work for 70 years after the death of the creator but in some jurisdictions, copyright can be renewed)

Public domain does not mean the internet or other easily accessible medium.

There is also a trap. If you want to copy something that is in the public domain you must source it from an older copy. If you copy from a new edition, you may well be infringing copyright, because there are certain rights attached to the new edition for 25 years after the date of publication.

Misconceptions about what you must do to copyright a work

I once had an extraordinary response from a celebrant-in-training about her right to sell other people's work – she claimed it was not "copywritten" and that it costs a lot of money to "copywrite" a work.

Wrong on both counts.

Copyright subsists from the minute the work is created. It doesn't matter that it hasn't been published; it doesn't matter that you haven't put the little copyright symbol on it ©; indeed, it doesn't matter that you're the only person who knows it exists, you have rights, and these rights are economic rights, that is, copyright.

Misconceptions about relevance of purpose of use

A common misconception is that if you aren't going to make money, you can copy and use anything you like. Whether or not you are going to make money out of it, you cannot use a work, or part of a work, to which someone else owns the rights, without specific permission from that person. It is not a valid excuse that you could not find the author (and given the frequency with which celebrants include readings in their ceremonies without acknowledgement, you need first to establish who the author is).

Another common misconception is that the 10% rule (known as the 'fair-dealing' provision applies generally. It doesn't. Fair-dealing, the capacity to use up to 10% of a work, or no more than one article from an issue of a periodical or one chapter from a book, is a provision for academic purposes, for use in research or quoting for purposes of a review. It does not apply to celebrant use of material on their websites, or in ceremonies or marketing materials.

And it is worth noting that a poem is a work in its entirety.

Moral rights

While copyright can be sold or given away (known as assigned) or licensed to another person or entity, there is another related set of rights that cannot. Known as moral rights these rights have been part of the Copyright Act since 2000 and protect an individual creator's reputation as the creator of the work. If you wish to use a work and the creator has assigned the copyright to someone else, you may have to get permission not just from the copyright holder but also from the creator.

Moral rights include:

• The right to be acknowledged as the creator of the work. Where a celebrant is using a poem in a ceremony, the author of that poem must be overtly acknowledged, that is you must say the author's name out loud!
• The right not to have the work falsely attributed to someone else (as when a celebrant reproduces material written by another person but claims that it is their own)
• The right to have the integrity of the work preserved, in particular, not to have it treated in a derogatory way – so a minor change, such as change of gender in a poem used for a naming may be acceptable, but a parody is not.

Basically, infringement of copyright is theft. Courts can impose penalties both for infringement of copyright and for infringement of moral rights.

Ignorance of the law is no defence. The Copyright Act is a Federal Law, a Law that is specifically mentioned by the Attorney General's Department as one of the laws that celebrants must abide by. Infringing it potentially will impact on the capacity of a celebrant to be regarded to be a 'fit and proper' person.

More information:
http://www.copyright.org.au/publications/infosheets.htm

Copyright for Celebrants

Information Sheet from the Attorney General's website
http://www.accn.com.au/store/enews/copyrightcelebrants.pdf

Non-Aligned Religious Celebrants.
The ACCN understand main stream religious celebrants have copyright schemes arranged for them by their national or state bodies. The ACCN would like non-aligned religious celebrants contact us about their copyright insurance needs, or for more information about what is available for this group of celebrants.

What can celebrants do to address copyright issues in their work?

• Celebrants share the names of appropriate resources books and their authors, so these may be borrowed from libraries, then purchased if considered appropriate by each celebrant for their work.
• Celebrants form small writing groups with members based in different states with the aim of writing original material on specific aspects of ceremonies, such as Welcomes, Introductions, Readings, Promises, Conclusions, etc. and with the agreement that
  a. all group members contribute
  b. all authors acknowledged in any printed resource materials
  c. all materials shared have copyright permission granted for use in celebrant's personal resource file and for a memento copy for the family, any other use requiring the author's permission.
• Celebrants purchase work by authors who have granted copyright permission for their work to be used in ceremonies and memento copies for their couples and families eg Ruth Van Gramberg has given permission for her material to be so used. See ACCN Celebrant Shop
• Individual celebrants purchase a Sole Traders Licence from Copyright Agency Limited. See below.