Last year, the Aussie was doing some consultancy work. He was asked to give a 5 minute talk on safety. You can't talk for 5 minutes and get any message across so I suggested that we made a film. If you have an iPad this is really simple. You take lots of still pictures, a piece of music and put them together a la Ken Burns and you have a powerful film. It took me 20 minutes to create a 4 minute film. Very simple.
Before he showed the film, he claimed that as this was a once off, he was able to use copyright free images from the web but the music had copyright. Because he was showing it at the Town Hall and they had a performing rights certificate he could play it for them but could not give copies of the film out, with the soundtrack. The film was well received and we received work offers from it however, the guy he was consulting for got very upset with us because we would not give him a copy of the film for his website. He kept saying that he paid for the Aussie's time to create it so it was his film. Mather Aussie said that the time was to create the ideas and if he had given a talk there would have been no tangible thing left after the talk. Just because he showed a film, the result was the same. We used copyright free images that we had paid the license for (not the client) so they were licensed to us, not him (we'd downloaded them over the years for other things) and unless we paid for a licensed copy of the music and he wanted to pay a license to us for the film he could not put it on the website as it would break copyright. Now here is what I think the crux of the matter is. It was said to me, in conversation, that we were making a big thing of it and we might as well it up the video and see if anyone tried to sue. If they didn't then what was the problem. Er... That I can't live with myself!!!! Karma is a bitch. A few months later this company had legal action taken against them over their logo being a breach of copyright. Even then, they didn't see why they should change their logo as it was working for them. (They were being sued by Oxford University ... I think I know who would win). It is a lack of understanding of copyright but also a sense of entitlement on many people's part. They think its their right to have what they want. I have always felt that making a copy of a something is like the guy drilling a hole under his seat in the lifeboat. Wen asked what he was doing he said "what's it to you, it's under my seat". However, it does raise the issue of out of print books. It's not the fact that some are offered for silly money. For me, it's the books with unique methods or patterns in them that are not available anywhere resulting in that knowledge being lost. It raises the moral issue that if I were to copy something to prevent it from being lost is it worse than the knowledge going? And that is the question that causes me to loose sleep because there are no winners there. I get Gardeners world each month (both as a print copy and a free iPad version). I read it then I put it into the recycling. It breaks my heart to see my magazines go into the recyc because I've read them for such s short time. Should I donate them to a Charity shop (no chance ours here don't many magazines). What about my neighbours or friends (they don't want them either) and even if I did, I'd be breaking copyright. One lady I met at a lace day told me that she passed her membership magazine around the group because it had so little in it that she found interesting she hoped someone might find some use for it as it seems a waste to put it in the bin because there a nothing she was interested in keeping. I asked why she subscribed and she said that it was to keep the group that produced the magazine going. A feeling that was echoed around the table. I asked if she designed? Perhaps she could submit patterns that others would like to help the publications and she said sadly that she had never designed and didn't feel confident enough to or felt she had the time. I gave a talk some time ago on British laces and showed a piece that I made years ago. One of the ladies made lace and asked where I got the pattern from. I had to tell her that it was an authored published piece that was out of print and the author was now deceased. She badgered me for s copy of the pattern. (My normal reply is that I'm not sure where it is we move so often some things get left in the loft). Her words were well a photocopy of the pricking won't hurt anyone. However, on the positive side, being on Facebook has been fantastic as I have got to talk to new designers round the world. And many have sent me, without my asking, copies of patterns they have designed themselves because we have talked whilst they designing process has been going on. W are rather obsessed with butterflies in our local group and I have now a wonderful collection of new butterflies in many different lace forms that have been shared by the designers. That I believe, is the pride to the digital age, being sent a pattern from Russia from a person I will never meet in person. Kind Regards Liz Baker - To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [email protected]. For help, write to [email protected]. Photo site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/
