[cma-l] copyright on the spoken word

Wed Oct 21 12:36:11 BST 2009

Fair use is a difficult thing to define. You might argue that reading  
an extract from a short story is a small part of the work and  
therefore, under the law, a fair use. The copyright holder may argue  
differently. So tread carefully. Also remember the author may not  
always be the rights holder and therefore an email from them saying  
"fine, use it" may be not be enough to protect you. To be honest, I  
doubt anyone would chase a community station as they don't see any  
money there but that's not to say that caution isn't needed. It is.

Richard

Richard Berry
Senior Lecturer in Radio Studies
Admissions Tutor
Programme Leader: FdA Community Radio & BA Radio
The David Puttnam Media Centre, St Peters Campus
Sunderland, SR6 0DD
Tel: 0191 515 2239
www.twitter.com/sunderlandradio
Web: www.sunderland.ac.uk/radio
Tags: www.delicious.com/richardberry
Blog:myblogs.sunderland.ac.uk/blogs/radio/

On 21 Oct 2009, at 12:25, CMA-L wrote:

> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>
> From: "Robert Kirkwood" <Robert.Kirkwood at insightradio.co.uk>
> HI,
>
>
> I work on a show called Talking Books at Insight Radio so have a bit  
> of experience with broadcasting the spoken word.
>
>
> I’m assuming your presenters and participants in the show will be  
> reading the work themselves and not using clips from audio books or  
> anything similar. If that’s the case, it’s a lot simpler than music  
> copyright; in fact it’s akin to just dealing with the lyrics of a  
> song, not the musicians or performers.
>
>
> If you’re just reading passages from written works that are less  
> than one or two minutes I’d term that as ‘fair use’ and as long as  
> the writer and publisher are credited you should be fine without  
> approaching anyone. If you want to use anything longer, or perhaps a  
> complete poem from beginning to end, I’d approach the author  
> themselves via an agent or publisher just to make sure, but to be  
> honest, I’ve never come across anyone who has refused me. It’s a  
> great advert for their book after all.
>
>
> It may be that the work you are reading from has no remaining  
> copyright, something like Dracula or Frankenstein could be read from  
> beginning to end … a general rule of thumb is 70 years after the  
> death of the author, although this could go down to 50 years  
> depending on when they died. The Project Gutenberg website lists  
> books out of copyright in the US and is a fairly good guide for the  
> UK situation.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Robert
>
>
> ....................................
> Robert Kirkwood
> Broadcast Producer
>
> <image001.jpg>
> Tel: 0141 3573518 ext. 28
> Fax: 0141 3345530
> Email: robert.kirkwood at insightradio.co.uk
> Address: 17 Gullane St, Partick, Glasgow, G11 6AH
>
> --
>
> DISCLAIMER:
>
>
>
> NOTICE: The information contained in this email and any attachments  
> is confidential and may be privileged.  If you are not the intended  
> recipient you should not use, disclose, distribute or copy any of  
> the content of it or of any attachment; you are requested to notify  
> the sender immediately of your receipt of the email and then to  
> delete it and any attachments from your system.  Insight Radio  
> endeavours to ensure that emails and any attachments generated by  
> its staff are free from viruses or other contaminants.  However, it  
> cannot accept any responsibility for any such which are  
> transmitted.  We therefore recommend you scan all attachments.   
> Please note that the statements and views expressed in this email  
> and any attachments are those of the author and do not necessarily  
> represent those of Insight Radio.
>
>
>
> RNIB Registered Charity Number: 226227
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk [mailto:cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk 
> ] On Behalf Of Heads Together
> Sent: 21 October 2009 09:47
> To: CMA-L
> Subject: [cma-l] copyright on the spoken word
>
>
> I know lots about music copyright issues and broadcast - but what  
> about the written (and then spoken) word.
>
>
> For example if a group of people were doing a programme about Fear  
> and, amongst many other things - wanted to do some readings of  
> poetry or sections of published stories that they have found  
> particularly scary ... what do I need to do to...
>
>
>
> Adrian Sinclair
>
> Director - East Leeds FM
>
> www.elfm.co.uk
>
> 45 Ramshead Hill
>
> Leeds LS14 1BT
>
> Tel 08709 90 50 90
>
> Mobile 07973 172 433
>
>
> Follow ELFM on twitter - http://www.twitter.com/eastleedsfm & join  
> us on facebook http://www.facebook.com/eastleedsfm
>
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> cma-l mailing list - cma-l at commedia.org.uk
>
> Community Media Association - www.commedia.org.uk
> _______________________________________________
>
> To manage your mailing list subscription please visit:
> http://mailman.commedia.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/cma-l

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.commedia.org.uk/pipermail/cma-l/attachments/20091021/9679bce7/attachment.html>