September 2019

Copyright is, even more, a topic now than it was in 2014 when I wrote this post. I have to admit that I still am not sure most of the time but just make sure I give credit where credit is due. I schedule this post in April 2019 just after the EU got their new rules through about copyright and sharing on the internet. So by the time this post is up again it might be a big topic again.

December 2014

Last week I was introducing you to the BBC Skillwise page which offers down to earth English lessons and games to improve your English skills.

In the process of posting, I was wondering if I can use their logo without asking for permission. Therefore, I googled both “fair use” the US-American term and “fair dealing” the UK and other English speaking countries term. Even though I found enough information, I still felt pretty unsure about the whole concept. So I took my usual path: search for a picture of the BBC logo on Flickr with the creative commons and “allowed for commercial use” filter.

It bugged me though that I am so unsure of the copyright in general and how to go about using other people’s work, which for me mainly includes using pictures. And I thought some of my readers might feel the same and would be happy to have a little library to find out more.

In my search for the “fair dealing” term, I stumbled over UKCS. UKCS is a UK copyright service which offers a huge information centre about intellectual property, copyright, trademarks, design rights and patents half of which I have never heard of.

I still feel pretty overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information given. But I decided this is a link for my “Writers little helpers” bookmark in Chrome where I have saved everything practical for my writing from spell check to name pages.

Even though the page is mainly designed for the usage in British copyright law, it also gives a good overview over US-American laws and international agreements which is very useful.

I feel this is a page every author and writer should know about and have bookmarked to ensure a better understanding of copyright and its use.

What about you? Do you know your countries copyright laws and how to deal internationally with copyright or do you feel as unsure as I?

Maybe you know a great page with down to earth explanation of copyrights? Please let me know! Thanks.