Copyright III: Derivative Works under Copyright Protection

Welcome back to another crash course on copyright protection which seems to be a popular topic! If you haven’t already read my previous blog posts on Copyright Protection and Free uses of work, I suggest you have a look at them before reading ahead.

I have previously addressed what you are allowed to do with copyrighted work which does not belong to you in my previous post. However I am still getting questions on what people are allowed to do, and most of the issues fall within derivative works.

What is protected under Copyright law?

Copyright protection protects original works such as artistic works, sculptures, books, manuscripts, speeches, musical works, computer codes, photographs etc – any creative, original work that can be recorded.

The creator/author of the work is the only person who has the write to: 

• Copy and reproduce their work
• Communicate their work to the public
• Perform the work to the public (plays and music and displaying artwork)
• Preparing derivative works from the original work

The original author may give permission for the use of their work to as many people as they would like and can do this in exchange for money.

Derivative Works

A derivative work is a new work that is based on or derived form 1 or more pre-existing copyrighted works. A few examples of these are:

• Movies based on books
• Translation of a book from English to Arabic
• Using artwork on merchandise
• A sequel to a movie with already pre-existing characters 

Using any pre-existing copyrighted  work as part of a “new version” of the work constitutes a derivative work. 

Who can prepare a copyrighted derivative work?

As I discussed before, Copyright is an automatic  right given to the original first author. This means that only the copyright owner can make derivative works. However, the copyright owner can assign this work to others to use. 

To help visualize this, let’s look at the following examples:

1. Sara is a local artist and creates really cool designs. Dalia really likes Sara’s designs and decides to print the designs on t-shirts. Dalia sells the t-shirts in her shop in the mall as her own designs.

Dalia has breached Sara’s copyrights because she did not have permission to print Sara’s drawings on her t-shirts.

2. Dalia really likes Sara’s drawings and Ahmed’s drawings and decides to incorporate both drawings into a jacket as a “new version”. Dalia starts selling this jacket at her shop in the mall saying that she had incorporated both designs of local artists and used them on the jacket. 

Dalia has created a derivative work, which is the compilation of the two drawings onto one jacket. Dalia is in breach of both Sara’s and Ahmed’s copyrights when she designed the jacket with both designs. She did not approach either artist and ask for permission to use their designs.

3. Dalia reads a French book called Battleships written by XY. Battleships was written 50 years ago by a French author. Dalia decides to create a live performance of Battleships in English as a play and hires a cast to perform it at her local theatre. Dalia didn’t think that copyright existed for the work since the author is foreign, deceased and the book is over 50 years old.

Dalia has created a derivative work, which is the live performance of Battleships. There are a few points here to note:

• Even though Battleships, the book, is in another language it still has copyright protection
• The play is a derivative work, meaning the copyrights belong to the author XY
• Although Dalia had minor changes in the play, it still had strong references to the book Battleships and the viewer could easily see the references.
• Dalia communicated to work to the public which is another breach of copyright
• Copyright protection is valid for the lifetime of the original author +70 years. Therefore Battleships, is still copyright protected even though the author is deceased. 

Inspiration vs Breach of Copyright

Most things are made out of inspiration, after watching a movie, reading a book, looking at certain Instagram pages, looking at other artwork or listening to a song. 

Being inspired by something doesn’t necessarily mean you have breached any copyrights. Most of the time you are probably inspired by the same original source.

Some things to keep in mind when your work is inspired by a previous work:

1. DO NOT COPY
2. Do not have major similarities
3. The audience should not confuse both your works
4. They should be significantly unique 

The above points are not conclusive but are just a guideline to help you if you are worried your work is too similar to a previous work. The same can apply to any derivative works

Conclusion

The law governing copyrights is a very stringent law and gives protection to all types of works. You should definitely do your research and avoid copying to make sure you are not infringing anyone’s copyrights over their work. Better to be safe than sorry!

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