YouTube, Copyright & Public Domain

I walked down to Bala to see the falls. I took a video of our heroic EMS crews for two reasons. 1) to show the power of the water from the south falls.

2) to laud the men and women who risked their lives to pull the bodies from the water.
For those unfamiliar with the water, they find it hard to understand the power of the water.

That said, I contacted CTV News to tell them about the incident. They asked permission to use my video, which I granted.
Then, I received a short e-mail from a Global TV reporter who asked if it was my video, and if I took the videos. I said I was. Conversation ended. Then I became curious. Why did he want to know?! I e-mailed him back. He said,

"Sometimes we will utilize you tube video in the show but we always check to ensure its the original thing and not a dub from another source. This has happened before but I prefer checking all sources as a rule of thumb."

My husband was watching the news and saw my video. I e-mail him back and said we saw my video on TV, and shouldn't he credit me with it?

He said,

"I hear you Jennifer; however once its on you tube it becomes public domain--and ends up being you tube sourced as the provider --but I have no problem crediting you...I will put your name up over the video for 11pm."

I did not accept this, checking for info I found none. I then e-mailed Dr. Michael Geist, uOttawa, and asked him. He e-mail me back and told me that,

"No - not true. Just because it is on YouTube, doesn't mean that it is public domain. They may still be able to use a portion as fair dealing, but that doesn't mean there isn't copyright in the work."

I forwarded his message to the reporter, I think it important that we be clear on these things. Many, many people steal the intellectual property of one another's photos and text. Copyright is a pet peeve of mine, and the least understood. When I taught my elementary students I had a hard time explaining that you couldn't copy the entire Internet for your own project! Plagiarism is an important issue to me. Theft of both visual and textual work is unlawful.

As Dr. Geist says, you can quote a portion 'fair dealing', but not all.
My children saw CITY TV featured a portion, but not the whole thing. Again, fair dealing. The reporter got back to me, after consulting the corporate lawyer. He wrote,

"It is lawful to use the video as part of a legitimate news report on the subject of the video itself as a "fair dealing" with the work pursuant to Section 29 of the Copyright Act. Therefore, the use made of the video might be justified as "fair dealing" in the circumstances."

What we need to remember, also, is that this is Canadian law, and the Internet is a world-wide beast. I would be curious about the laws in other countries.

All of us must realise that we cannot use work that does not belong to us. It is simple to ask, as most of us who post photos, text, audio and video, are happy to share with the world, provided we are credited. In this, the age of technology, we must be careful to respect this, despite the ease with with we can copy this work. (And it IS work!)
Read more on Canadian laws: Respect intellectual property.

Read more from a US lawyer: Nine Copyright Myths of the Online World.
Myth #2: It's okay to use anything that's online, because if it's online, it's in the public domain and up for grabs

"Public domain" is a concept that a lot o f people throw around without truly understanding it. "Public domain" does not mean the same thing as "on the Web" or even "publicly available." In fact, the fact that a work is online or publicly available is no indication whatsoever of whether it is in the public domain.


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References

• What is "fair dealing" - Copyright Law 9 Sep 2008 ... What kinds of uses are legal in the United States under fair use but not clearly legal in Canada under fair dealing?
• 1 FAIR DEALING IN CANADA The Canadian Copyright Act (R.S.C. 1985 ...[PDF]
  

  What is "fair dealing"/"fair use"?

  In Canada, the principal exception to the exclusive rights of copyright holders is called "fair dealing". Fair dealing creates a limited number of exceptions, including private study, research, criticism, review and news reporting. This list is exhaustive, such that fair dealing applies only to those categories of dealings that are specifically mentioned.
  The equivalent user right under American copyright law, "fair use," is, by contrast, an open-ended system which adopts a non-exhaustive approach to categories of dealings, and focuses instead on principles for determining whether a use strikes an equitable balance between user and copyright holder interests. These principles include, but are not limited to: determinations of the purpose and character of the use; the nature of the work; the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the entire work; and, the effect of the derived work on the market for the original. Fair dealing relies on similar fairness principles, but only within the scope of the itemized categories of dealings. The term fair use is thus more expansive than fair dealing and the terms should not be used interchangeably.