Issues of Debate #1 - Copyright.

Copyright.

As a University Student, I have realised the importance of Copyright, and in the real world, it is a lot more complicated. Everything needs to be justified, and cleared before using a piece of music, and for costly sums of money. This doesn't mean things I have done, can't be published, but quite a lot of my previous work, before University has used content which should be cleared if I was to produce the same pieces, outside of education purposes.

Copyright causes a problem, at any stage of productions at any level, whether further education, higher education, or professional. For me the issue has been easier to deal with, as I know a musician who can produce copyright free music for me, for credit. As I gain more experience, and better quality productions, I would need more music, and we already have an agreement, in which, if they have to produce more than 10 songs, we would need to negotiate a fee.

I would be unable to Use a Johnny Cash song, in a tribute to Johnny Cash, or to give a drama more tension, as a background song, or perhaps an opening or closing credit song, without permission from the people that own the Johnny Cash estates, for example. Clearing copyrighted material for use in materials, whether non profit or for commerical purposes can vary. It can cost thousands of pounds for up to 30 seconds of music or video footage.

The reason for this, is the same as, on doing essays, or scholastic work, if using a quotiation from a source, or a person, I am to Harvard Reference it, to say where I got it from, this is the visual sense of the Harvard Referencing system.

To put it another way, if I had worked for hours, or in some cases weeks on a project, and if someone tried to pass it off as their own work, it would be disappointing. If I was to find someone had submitted a video on YouTube or Vimeo, that I had done, and passed it off as their own, I would have to prove that it was my creation, and I am the copyright holder. This could be a long process, but whenever I am involved with a piece of media creation, I always place on beginning and end credits which would say who did what on the production. This is a form of Harvard referencing, and will make it difficult for anybody to steal works I have been involved with.