Is a Public Statement Under Copyright?
August 10, 2015 12:44 PM Subscribe
I thought of a good line to put on a tee-shirt. I found that a known lecturer has used the same statement publicly and it has been attributed to her on blogs. Is this statement under copyright? If yes, are there any ways around it?
If it's copyrighted/not fair use/whatever, the way around it is to contact the copyright holder and ask. That's the only legal and ethical way around something that is copyrighted (that is to say copyrighted without certain rights waived, as in fair use or much Creative Commons licencing etc).
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 1:05 PM on August 10, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 1:05 PM on August 10, 2015 [2 favorites]
Well, you could ask her if it's OK to put it on a t-shirt, or you could put it on a t-shirt and hope that she doesn't ask you to stop/sue you. The lecturer would have to a) believe that the phrase belongs to her (maybe she does, and maybe she doesn't) and b) go after you to try and make you stop.
Whether it's ethical mostly depends on whether you think the statement really belongs to someone else or not; whether it's legal depends on what a court decides if the owner decides to sue you.
Also this mostly only applies if you're selling the t-shirts, if you just make one for your personal use it's very unlikely to get you in trouble.
posted by mskyle at 1:07 PM on August 10, 2015 [2 favorites]
Whether it's ethical mostly depends on whether you think the statement really belongs to someone else or not; whether it's legal depends on what a court decides if the owner decides to sue you.
Also this mostly only applies if you're selling the t-shirts, if you just make one for your personal use it's very unlikely to get you in trouble.
posted by mskyle at 1:07 PM on August 10, 2015 [2 favorites]
One interesting thing about copyright is that it's not the thing being said that copyright applies to, it's the work. This means that in general, if you get interviewed, the publication owns the copyright to the things you said in the interview.
So one question is where did the person say the things, and to whom, and who recorded it or wrote it down. I am not a lawyer and I don't know what happens if a person says the same series of words in a variety of different works.
posted by goingonit at 1:12 PM on August 10, 2015
So one question is where did the person say the things, and to whom, and who recorded it or wrote it down. I am not a lawyer and I don't know what happens if a person says the same series of words in a variety of different works.
posted by goingonit at 1:12 PM on August 10, 2015
Note you can only infringe copyright by actually copying something, so in theory you're OK if you came up with the phrase on your own. (Google for something like "independent creation as a defense to copyright infringement".) In practice it may be hard to prove that you came up with it on your own (as opposed to, say, seeing it somewhere, forgetting you saw it, then thinking it was your idea (wasn't that claimed to happen in the George Harrison case?)).
In my extremely non-expert opinion, this kind of thing depends on way too many details to be answerable by strangers on the internet.
posted by bfields at 1:24 PM on August 10, 2015
In my extremely non-expert opinion, this kind of thing depends on way too many details to be answerable by strangers on the internet.
posted by bfields at 1:24 PM on August 10, 2015
Best answer: IANAL. IANYL. Copyright protects only the "detailed expression" of a work, IOW the exact words. You can't copyright ideas. A paraphrase is probably OK, as long as you actually do that and don't just change one word or the punctuation or something.
Asking permission is the classy thing to do, and a lot of people are surprisingly cool with things if you ask nicely. When you ask, be specific about stuff like whether you'll be making money, whether you'll give proper attribution and the context of the use.
posted by sourcequench at 2:50 PM on August 10, 2015 [1 favorite]
Asking permission is the classy thing to do, and a lot of people are surprisingly cool with things if you ask nicely. When you ask, be specific about stuff like whether you'll be making money, whether you'll give proper attribution and the context of the use.
posted by sourcequench at 2:50 PM on August 10, 2015 [1 favorite]
Dr. King's family has made quite a bit of money from the speeches he gave in public. The author's words belong to her.
If you want to make yourself a Tshirt, I doubt anyone would care, but selling them seems shady to me.
posted by Ideefixe at 5:07 PM on August 10, 2015
If you want to make yourself a Tshirt, I doubt anyone would care, but selling them seems shady to me.
posted by Ideefixe at 5:07 PM on August 10, 2015
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posted by 256 at 1:04 PM on August 10, 2015