Copyright

Copyright in Britain is part of the copyright, designs and patents act 1988. It restricts anybody using somebody else’s product without their permission-usually an agreement can be made for a sum of money. Copyright is a method that protects an artist’s brand image as the song and videos can be kept the way the artist intended for them to be-Copyright lasts for 60 years from the release date but can also be renewed by the artist at any stage, it also keeps the song exclusive for the artist as the audience will only know the song in the original version, unless the artist says otherwise. For instance in the 00’s a song ‘Eternal Flame’ was released by Atomic Kitten but it was originally a Bangles song and those not old enough to remember or know the Bangles would believe the song is an Atomic Kitten song.

We are using a song from Jason Mraz -‘I won’t give up’ for our coursework   and therefore we are tasked with gaining the copyright permission from Mraz’s record label-Atlanta records. Getting the copyright for this song is vital as failing to produce such permission in the light of using the product to earn money is an illegal offence as well as suggesting that the product is your own, both offences can result in a large fine,  in which is not optimum for us as the fine would be far more than what we can pay.

The research into copyright not only has highlighted the implications of not providing copyright and the punishments for violating the law, but it also has shown us how to gain copyright. In response to this research the group and I have requested to use the song from Atlanta Records on the terms that we do not try to make money from it, we do not change the sound of the song and we keep some of the original messages within the song. As we are using the song for a school project we are more likely to be able to use this song, whereas a large company like BBC would almost always need to pay a large sum of money for the usage.