Carol Forsloff - Copyright issues continue to create questions for both the artist and user of artistic material in some cases, where artists, visual or performance, maintain their creative work not properly remunerated, including the artist of the famous war memorial stamp depiction of the Korean War while others claim fair use.In this most recent case, the artist Frank Gaylord, who designed and created the sculptures that are depicted on the stamp that commemorated the 50th anniversary of the peace-signing agreement of the Korean War, is suing for a 10 percent share of the $30.2 million earned by the sale of the stamps. The US Postal Service, it is alleged, licensed the photograph taken by John Allie, but Gaylord maintains it never got his permission to show his "The Column" art work on the stamp and retail merchandise.
Whereas outright plagiarism is often considered the major threat to an artist's work, and most other artists condemn what they also see as a theft of creative work, there are far more subtle issues that sometimes swing issues into a no-man's land of controversy where folks no longer know when they may be cited, even for such a simple thing as posting a family video of a child's dancing to a familiar tune for the entertainment of other family members and friends.
In the case of a man called Tony, who runs a music store in the Portland, Oregon area, his daughter had been at Disneyland and was photographed with some of the Disney Characters. Tony's child was so delightful and animated during the video photography that the video put on YouTube became an overnight sensation with 7 million hits and counting. But later, when Tony videoed his little daughter dancing in the living room, he was cited for copyright infringement, as the child was dancing to music from the television set. The music itself was copyrighted, and Tony's video-taping accented his daughter's dancing. But the copyright was maintained so that the publishing company is free to advertise on the video itself.
Cover songs are often used by musicians to demonstrate their musical abilities to potential employers or for simple entertainment of friends and the public. These days, since YouTube allows the uploading of material in many areas outside of the creative ones, the competition for page views has increased dramatically, so that many musicians find their quality work, including original tunes, at the bottom of a seemingly bottomless dumpster that contains YouTube videos suggestive of incest, rape and some that depict physical violence on many levels. Yet, despite YouTube's written standards, these questionable videos remain a part of the video family, while Tony's video received a citation. Furthermore, many folks may present a cover song and receive no reprimand at all, whereas others doing the same thing with the same song will be asked to take the video down or to allow advertising. The more popular the channel, it appears, the more apt the publisher via YouTube, will respond with a citation of third-party content to allow advertising and prohibit any remuneration by the user. This sometimes includes old gospel songs, classical pieces, and other tunes thought to be in the public domain.
And these citations come with no explanation except the reference to the copyright section of YouTube's Terms of Service.
Tony's video is one of thousands that are not direct and purposefully done depictions of another artist's work, but it reflects the questions that show the problems in the copyright laws and their applications. While direct copying of another person's song is justified in the mind of the musician by listing it as a "cover", the application of the rules is ambiguous at best, as many are allowed through the gate, so that cover songs are considered legal by those who do them, while an unlucky group is cited for doing far less.
Most artists want the original owner of creative material to be rewarded for the work and for its use. On the other hand, it is impossible to perform a piece of music written after 1923 without risking a YouTube warning. It is simply a matter of who gets lucky.
In the meantime, the US Post Office is now unlucky, in the sense it too is now on the copyright ropes for having allegedly crossed the line on copyright laws with a photograph that included an artist's sculpture. That might likely mean that some happy tourist who takes a picture of his family in the doorway of a room containing paintings could be cited for copyright infringement by one of the painters even if the focus is not on the paintings but the family vacation and that museum or gallery experience.
