Copyright or copywrong? (featuring Lauren Laverne)

Okay,  copyright does not always sound like fun… so can you believe that I have attended not one but two copyright events in a month which I found fun?

I attended a Copyright Masterclass with Emily Goodhand aka Copyright Girl at the swish De Vere conference facility – I even spotted Lauren Laverne in my lunch break! (ok so the inclusion of LL in the subject was just to get you to read on, but I did see her honestly!) The course covered an overview of copyright, which is always helpful as sometimes you get absorbed in your particular area and it’s helpful to refocus on the bigger picture. We also started with a pop quiz – which helped to reinforce how much with did know, but also cleared up some common misconceptions. Copyright law forbids you from copying CDs you have bought legally onto your ipad. Boo copyright!

What was really interesting about the day was that we looked more in depth onto some specific legal cases around copyright in order to understand how they had infringed copyright: For instance, exactly what was it that meant a publican playing satellite football in her pub was breaking the law? We also looked at some common library scenarios which might result in infringements and measures that could be taken to get around them, such as using credited creative commons images.

Maybe you have to have that sort of nit picking brain which really wants to understand the intricacies of things in order to appreciate this, but it’s also inspiring to be trained by someone who’s clearly enthused by their subject and knows a lot about it. When I attend training I always have half an eye on the subject and half an eye on the delivery style – in this case I thought the format was good in as far as it was  a small group, so easy to raise questions, and it was kept quite hands on with the exercises we were asked to do.

My highlight of the day – a debate about whether a particularly original decorative cake could be copyright protected. Copyright girl says no. (I want to put in a link to Little Britain’s Computer Says No, but I’m not sure if copyright allows/encourages linking to youtube!) Any way Emily Goodhand said food cannot be copyrighted it is a perishable work, but I still think there’s a case for it!

If you have a budding interest in copyright, or even if you think it’s not as dull as you originally thought – have a look at Peter’s Blog

As for the fascinating Heron User Group with guest from the Copyright Licensing Agency, that fascinating tale will have to wait for another day…