The world of Social Media has dramatically changed our world—the ways are obvious and often mentioned, and don’t need to be repeated “Off Stage”, because there’s a whole world of social media ‘specialists’ out there. Just ask ‘em!
I hasten to say, I’m not one of the specialists. I enjoy social media, use it, and advocate it as a part of the association management tools of our current time. As a blogger, I see a part of my job as interpreting how SM tools can be used by all of us, with an emphasis on what is practical and do-able for the average AE who spends most of his/her day job trying to herd cats. And there are also some practical issues which arise that we need to know about as we incorporate this whole new skill set into our managerial bag of tricks.
One of those areas is copyright. I don’t mean the many-tentacled copyright law and policy that snakes out from behind the MLS rock and attaches itself to listing data: I am referring to the stuff of our online education programs, promotional videos, website news clips, and video retrospectives of our association honorees. Cell phones, flip videos, and digital cameras have made it easy and inexpensive to capture live happenings. Websites and social media applications such as Flickr and YouTube have become repositories of our creations. The world is our audience.
As I said in my earlier post about social media policy for your association, you can’t put this genie back in the bottle. At the recent AE Institute, someone expressed fear of ‘what is our liability if we LET our members use Twitter.’ Hey! Members are using Twitter and other social media, whether you ‘let’ them or not. Get over it. And get busy and develop some responsible guidelines so everyone understands what’s expecting of them as far as ethics and good taste go. Then, hope for the best—in the social media world the control is pretty much out of your hands.
But what about videos? Let’s say you capture your convention speaker in a few key clips, the speaker gives you the right to utilize the vids on your website, and you post them under ‘Convention Highlights.’ What you didn’t realize is that the speaker was standing in front of the logo of your association’s largest franchise. The franchise owner took issue with the speaker’s remarks, and threatened legal action against the association for infringing on the franchise trademark clearly seen over the speaker’s left shoulder. What’s the ‘fair use’ policy at issue here?
That’s the question the School of Communications at American University has tried to address in its excellent publication and video on the subject of Fair Use Policy. AU created a white paper on the topic, in which it premises that more and more, video creation depends on the ability to “use and circulate existing copyrighted work.” Various common techniques, such as mash-ups and re-mixes, make use of the “tradition of recycling old culture to make new.” So what are the guidelines?
The courts consider two questions:
1. Did the use ‘transform’ the original work into a new use? And
2. Was the material taken appropriate in kind and amount?
Another illustration: you are preparing a video highlighting the leadership of your outgoing association president. You have a mash-up of clips and photos and sound bites: she’s meeting with legislators, testifying at a city commission meeting, having coffee at a Starbucks. You include some background videos from her favorite musical group and an interview from a local television commentator. Then you post your creation on your association website as a tribute to her excellent contributions to the community. Do you have to obtain permissions from Starbucks, the television station, and the rock and roll band?
The AU publication outlines the best practices of fair use as they apply to video presentation—but I think that with some modifications, those practices apply in many instances we as association staff may encounter as we utilize new technologies in our public relations and education efforts. AU tells us that best practices permit the use of copyrighted material
1. When you’re commenting on or critiquing copyrighted material;
2. When you’re using copyrighted material for examples or illustration;
3. When you capture copyrighted material incidentally or accidentally (as in the logo example mentioned in a preceding paragraph);
4. When you are reposting or reproducing material in order to preserve an historical event;
5. When you are recopying or reposting copyrighted material for purposes of promoting a discussion
6. When you are quoting or reproducing elements in order to recombine them to make a new work.
Again, these six points are guidelines: there’s really no definitive fair use law as such. It’s a topic that is as evolving as is technology and creativity. But there are general best practices which I think all of us need to understand and follow.
The first step toward understanding fair use is to visit The Center for Social Media at American University. Watch the short video (it’s fun, and should set your own creative juices flowing!). Then read the post, ”Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video”. It’s thorough and gives illustrations and limitations for each of the best practices cited in the paper. I think you’ll find it contains many practical insights into your association management activities.
And by the way, while you’re on the site, note that I am following the usage instruction stated there: Feel free to reproduce this work in its entirety. For excerpts and quotations, depend upon fair use.
Judith, this was a very helpful post. As one who often speaks at Family Law conferences, and who maintains two legal blogs and two blogs about aging, I often use material from other sources, verbatim quotes or images. "Fair Use" is an important concept.
It rankles me when the top legal family law blogger in the country copies verbatim an article I've written -- one I've spent an hour or so writing. Although he links to me and attributes the material to me, it's not driving traffic to my blog. It is simply making his day easier.
I will forward a copy of your post to our family law conference organizers. It might be that they will circulate it to other speakers. Jeanne M Hannah
A behind the scenes look at organized real estate--what works in an association, what doesn't, and what a long time AE sees as challenges facing the industry from the viewpoint of its professional organization.
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