Shari Della Penna
  • Home
  • About
    • My family
    • My work
    • My favorites
    • FAQ's
  • Contact
  • Blog

"Small acts of kindness can change and humanise our world."
   Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks 1948-2020
   ​Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, 1991-2020
                         Author, Advocate, Advisor

Copy That…or Don’t!

1/14/2020

2 Comments

 
    “It won’t be the exact same,” Amelia argues. “We’re not going to plagiarize her. Filmmakers create stories based on true events all the time. It’s a common thing.”
                                             from I Can Make this Promise
                                                             by Christine Day
                                                           HarperCollins, 2019
        When I found out I needed one more Humanities Class to fulfill my graduation requirements, I thought World Literature was a good choice. It was a Freshmen level course. I was a senior English Major in my last quarter, in those days before the Semester Conversion, and older than all the students. But not older than the professor.
    Toward the end of the quarter, my professor asked to see me after class. That’s not usually a good thing, and this wasn’t an exception. I had turned in a reflection piece on a reading assignment and she asked why I hadn’t cited my sources. Well, I explained that I didn’t have sources, since the ideas I expressed were my own. 
    My professor actually apologized and said she’s so used to reading work from incoming Freshmen that my paper stood out. All ended well.
    When we use other people’s work, we need to acknowledge it. After all, it’s only fair, and it’s the law. And it’s complicated. Countries have their own laws. Some international agreements have been made. Copyright and the internet is a topic for a scholar greater than me, and I won’t even mention YouTube, even though I just did!
    Currently an artistic creation is protected for the creator’s life plus 70 years, the length of its copyright. The length of time a work can be copyrighted has been extended many times since the introduction of copyright in 1790. 
    Bill Clinton signed the last copyright extension into law in 1998. Called the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, it extended the previous law by 20 years. From 1978 to 1998, a work’s copyright was valid for the life of the author, artist, or composer plus 50 years. Beginning in 1998, a copyright became valid for life plus 70 years. Because of the 20 year extension, no new works entered the public domain between 1998 and 2018. Here’s an explanation from the Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/10/25/15-years-ago-congress-kept-mickey-mouse-out-of-the-public-domain-will-they-do-it-again/ that discusses what happened to works published before 1978, which is where the base year 1923 came from.
    When copyrights expire, they become part of the public domain, and are up for grabs to anyone who wants to use the material. They enter the public domain 70 years after the author, composer, or artist has passed away.
    According to https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/public-domain/welcome/ “The public owns [this body of work], not an individual author or artist. Anyone can use a public domain work without obtaining permission, but no one can ever own it.”  Copyright rules were applied when Arthur Laurents published West Side Story, a modern retelling of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim wrote the unforgettable music and lyrics. 
    Shakespeare’s work is in the public domain. West Side Story (text, music, and lyrics) is protected by copyright and will be until 70 years after the last collaborator’s death. Since Stephen Sondheim is still very much alive at age 89, well, let’s just wish him good health for many, many more years.
    Welcome 2020! On January 1, for the second year in a row, previously published works entered the public domain, all published in 1924. Some favorites are in this new class.
    Music
        Al Jolson’s “California, Here I Come”
        George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue
    Literature
        E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India
        A. A. Milne’s When We Were Very Young
        Gertrude Chandler Warner’s The Box-Car Children (first book
                        in the series)

    Artwork
        Edward Hopper’s “New York Pavements”
        Diego Rivera’s fresco Day of the Dead 
    A few years ago I wanted to set a manuscript I wrote to a song I knew. A writer friend asked me if the tune was in the public domain. I didn’t know so I put my Librarian’s skills to work and checked folksongindex.com and https://www.pdinfo.com/pd-song-list/search-pd-songs.php. I discovered the song was written in the 1830s.
    Although the title didn’t appear on the Public Domain Information Project’s page, the Olive A. Wadsworth version of the song I wanted to use dates from 1870. It’s referred to as a “traditional” folksong, so I was safe, again.
    The internet is a wonderful resource. We share information with people all over the world. Much of what people post falls under “fair use,” and laws regulate fair use. While gray areas of interpretation abound, it’s often simple and always right to seek permission from the poster, before re-posting.
    Here’s your blanket permission to re-post anything from this post you like. I’d appreciate acknowledgement, though! 
                                          -—stay curious! (and courteous)
2 Comments
Gay Birnbaum
1/20/2020 05:47:44 pm

Hi Shari,
I am finally getting around to reading your blog. Interesting and quite ironic. My nephew Randy Newman sued to get "Happy Birthday" in the public domain in the past year or two. Now movies and restaurants are able to sing it without paying fees.

Reply
Shari Della Penna link
1/20/2020 09:24:55 pm

Thanks for looking in and commenting! The world does work in mysterious ways. I read about "Happy Birthday." Here's an article I found in the Smithsonian magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/happy-birthday-officially-public-domain-180956740/
We really do live in a very small world!

Reply



Leave a Reply.

         I'm a children's writer and poet intent on observing the world and nurturing those I find in my small space .

    Archives

    June 2025
    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly