A Quick Look at International Copyright Laws and How they Apply to your Press Releases
Is it possible that your press release could be criminal? If it ignores copyright laws, it is. Copyright law applies across international borders and we share how it can affect press releases and PR to avoid falling prey to the trap of stealing when all you might want to do is to borrow.
Copyright is the protection of intellectual property. If someone or business holds the copyright of any intellectual property, others who use that intellectual property in certain capacities must get permission to do so. Some countries’ copyright laws are rather strict. Others are rather loose. Regardless, it’s important to know which areas all countries focus on.
(Photo by Cytonn Photography on Unsplash)
Those most pertinent to the PR industry include:
- The right to translate
- The right to communicate the performance of a work in public
- The right to broadcast
- The right to make reproductions
- The right to use the work as a basis of an audiovisual work
(Photo by Adil Ansari on Unsplash)
What this means is that if your press release involves the ignoring of any of the above rights, your press release may be held liable for copyright infringement. So, what can you and your PR team do to avoid any problems?
- Get authorization. If the information in your release is borrowed from another source, you must receive authorization from the creator. Some key types of information that would require authorization:
- information from other media used in your release
- translations of information from another company or source
- data from another party’s research
- quotes from named individuals not affiliated with your company
- any other detail your company did not come by first-hand.
Authorization is preemptive protection against copyright complaints, so be sure you have it.
- Create your audio-visual elements. The easiest way to avoid copyright infringement problems with audio-visual material in your release is to create it yourself. That way, you can guarantee you have the copyright. If, however, you use someone else’s photo, video, chart, screenshot, or any other image that you do not own the copyright to, you must have the authorization to use it in your release, just like other borrowed details.
Take this chart for example:
(PRNewsfoto/Cision)
As it was created by PR Newswire, we would not need anyone else’s authorization to include it in our press release.
However, if we wanted to include this chart in a press release:
(From KPMG LLP release on prnewswire.com)
We would need to get authorization from the original creator (KPMG LLP) to distribute it in our release because it does not belong to PR Newswire. If we distributed it in a press release without authorization from the creator, it could land us in legal trouble.
- Steer clear of these red flags of possible copyright infringement:
- quoting someone from another press release or another media
- including data, facts, or information from another source without properly citing the source
- using a photo you found on the internet
- screenshot image from a website or television program
- using charts from another party’s rankings, surveys, or studies
Any of these actions could place you in the category of intellectual theft.
(Photo by kat wilcox from Pexels)
In short, copyright compliance across borders can be simple if you’re conscious of the laws. To borrow without stealing, you first must get authorization from the creator, then give credit to them in the release. It is a small yet effective way to maintain your company’s reputation. If you forget or purposely ignore copyright protections, you’re stealing, and theft of this type can lead to both legal and financial consequences, not to mention the massive damage to your company’s reputation. Just be aware of what you can and can’t do and be knowledgeable about how and why to give credit to those whose work you may include in your PR so that your release is copyright safe!
To practice what we preach, here are our sources of information for this post:
https://www.rightsdirect.com/international-copyright-basics/
https://www.wipo.int/portal/en/index.html
PS: The photos included in this blog are all from the Fair Use photo sites Pexels and Unsplash
Photo 1: https://unsplash.com/photos/GJao3ZTX9gU
Photo 2: https://unsplash.com/photos/2vzy1ZvfV8A
Photo 5: https://www.pexels.com/photo/crime-scene-do-not-cross-signage-923681/
Nathan Brown 