Copyright Concerns By Santhini Govindan

(This ©article was created by author and poet, Santhini Govindan exclusively for the October,2016 issue of Kahani Takbak, a newsletter by authors for children authors.)  

                            

       

    When I first started writing for children, I did not imagine that the stories and poems that I wrote would be used in text books (academic) books.  Initially, only a few of my stories were included in primary school English literature readers, but this increased over the years, and eventually, I started compiling English language readers myself, (with original and public domain content) for several major academic book publishers in India. It was during this exercise that I learnt how important it is, for a writer, to have a basic understanding of copyright and copyright laws, and what ‘public domain’ means.  

     Copyright is the legal protection given to the author or creator of an original creative work. The work, which may be literary, musical, artistic, or dramatic, is considered to be its creator’s intellectual property. This means that the author owns his/her own creative work, and has the sole rights to publish it, perform, translate, or adapt it, and make copies of the work, and distribute them as he or she likes. No other individual can do any of these things without getting the written permission of the original author. Copyright therefore, protects the rights of authors. However, this protection does not last forever (not in perpetuity) – it exists only for a specified period of time, and this period varies from country to country. In the United States, all works published before 1923 are in the public domain. All artistic works, created after January 1st, 1978, are now are protected in the USA for the lifetime of the author, plus an additional 70 years. Copyright cannot be renewed after this period. However, different copyright rules apply in different countries. The fact that a work is in the public domain in the United States does not necessarily mean that it is in the public domain in another country.

In the United Kingdom, copyright lasts for seventy years after the death of an author. Interestingly, there is one celebrated British children’s play titled ‘Peter Pan, or the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up,’ written by J. M. Barrie that will never enter the public domain. In an act of incredible generosity, Barrie gifted all the rights of the magical character of ‘Peter Pan’ to a children’s hospital  in London – Great Ormon Street Hospital, that now  gets substantial from the many uses of the character, including merchandise, books, TV shows, plays and movies.

    In India, the general rule is that copyright lasts for sixty years after the death of an author. This means that an original story or novel ceases to be protected by copyright laws sixty years after its original creator dies, and passes into the ‘public domain.’*

    ‘Public domain,’ refers to all creative materials that are no longer the exclusive property of their original authors, but are available to members of the general public to publish, perform, adapt, or translate freely. Some of these may be ancient historic works that existed much before copyright laws existed or were even thought of, like Homer’s ‘The Odyssey,’ or works where the copyright has expired, like Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ and Carlo Collodi’s ‘Pinocchio.’ The public domain also includes folk tale collections that are thousands of years old, like the Panchatantra or Jataka Tales, the works of masters like William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens, and religious texts. Any of these works in the public domain can be published, reprinted, adapted, or translated without any permission or payment of any fees.

     It’s not widely known that the Walt Disney Company regularly uses stories in the public domain to create many of their block buster movies. They used stories by Charles Dickens (Oliver Twist, Christmas Carol) Rudyard Kipling (The Jungle Book) Hans Christian Anderson (The Little Mermaid) the Brothers Grimm (The Frog Prince) among many others. The Disney Company was free to interpret and adapt these stories as imaginatively as they wished, and the million dollar movies they created from them, are truly memorable. However, the original characters and story interpretation created by the Disney Company, from works they took originally from the public domain without any payment, are copyrighted material, and no images, lines, illustrations or musical scores from them can be utilized without permission, and payment of royalties to the company. Similarly, folktales from various lands are considered to be in the public domain, but an individual author’s own interpretation or adaptation of a tale, with his or her own unique style of storytelling, is not in the public domain, and is copyrighted material that belongs to its author. An original adaptation or version of a public domain work is protected by copyright – so, while the original story ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ by the Brothers Grimm is in the public domain, the Disney Company’s cinematic interpretation of it is protected by copyright. 

      If an author writes an article or a story for a periodical magazine or newspaper, unless he or she specifically signs over the copyright to the publication, the copyright rests with the author. The newspaper/magazine usually gets only the first right to publication, and the author is free to use his original material in a book or anthology later on. However, most publications that have first rights do sometimes ask that the author mention where the work was first published, when it is published subsequently.

      In the case of translations, a translator can only translate or adapt a copyrighted work with the consent of the author. Once this is given, the subsequent work of the translator, who uses his or her own skill and creativity in translation, is also protected by copyright.        

    There are however a few exemptions for uses of work enjoying copyright. Students and scholars are free to use copyrighted material in academic projects (but due credit/acknowledgement must be given to the source) Copyright material can be used for research, study, criticism, review and news reporting, in libraries, and schools. It can be performed too, but only for non-commercial use (not for profit). If you want to reproduce copyrighted material in an academic text book, anthology, or fiction book, or perform it publicly for profit, you have to get permission from the author. Permission is usually granted only on payment of royalty. In cases where an author has given all copyrights to the publisher of a book, requests for permission to reproduce copyrighted material have to be made to the publisher. In some cases, even if the author has passed away, granting of permissions to use copyrighted materials is handled by the author’s legal heirs, or different administrators of their estate (as in the case of Roald Dahl).  

       In today’s world of technological advancement and the ever expanding Internet, there are many new forms of creative expression, like blogging. This has thrown up new styles of copyrighting too, like the Creative Commons license.   Creative Commons is a non-profit organisation that offers an alternative to full copyright. By placing a Creative Commons statement on your blog or website, you allow others to use your content, but specify the terms of use. There are different Creative Commons Licenses available that one can choose from. (https://creativecommons.org/)

Copyright laws are complicated, and a short piece cannot even give a bird’s eye view of the subject. All writers have therefore, to do their own research when dealing with copyright matters, and in cases where they are running a commercial concern, it is best to get sound device from lawyers specializing in intellectual property rights.                

    

*In India, the case of cinematograph films, sound recordings, photographs, posthumous publications, anonymous and pseudonymous publications, works of government and works of international organizations, the 60-year period is counted from the date of publication.

The criteria for a particular work to enter public domain in 2016 in India is for the author to have died in calendar year 1955, and the work to have been published before his death. If the work has been published after the author’s death, it will only come out of copyright after 60 years from date of publication.  

 http://copyright.gov.in/Documents/handbook.html - A bird’s eye view of copyright laws in India

 To know more about Santhini visit www.santhinigovindan.com

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