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Despairing at the quality on offer from magazines these days, I've decided to go it alone with a small, indy style publication that will target a niche market. Truth be told, it will be full of stuff I like and if nobody else likes it, then they can 'swivel on this mid-digit (Kryten Red Dwarf) But anyway, the subject is not important, it's doesn't matter if your doing Tanks of the third reich or saltwater fishing, it's copyright i'm worried about. So, if I do an article an article on a subject and use a picture of a person, how does it work? Do I need to get thier permission or highlight the source, or pay a fee to somebody? What if it's a picture of a long dead historical person? What if use a picture from a museum or gallery? Same thing goes for written text. At university, you never had to worry about this thing in essay.

Advertising: would I be able to mention this magazine on the Dakka website, or create a topic with a link to this magazine? By a twist of fate the one area I was worried about (IT) has been covered by a friend, so all I have to do is focus on the above.

Any help and advice would be appreciated.

You should be able to find pictures of most things within the realm of public domain. Meaning you can use it freely (citing the origin however when possible is usually a good idea even if it is public domain). Written text if it is not your own words or ideas, should always be sourced. This isn't just a matter of copyright but of credibility. You will be more credible when it is clear you are not making things up and are knowledgeable of the material being discussed. Its also not cool to take ideas and not give credit, that's called plagiarism

More than that, depending on the subject, even if it is copyrighted, no one will really care (this is for pictures). This can be iffy. For example, you shouldn't use pictures taken by say, the New York Times for their piece about Obama's State of the Union Address, while covering Obama's State of the Union address yourself without asking permission. I think you can use stuff produced by the US Government freely with citation as the Government produces those pictures for the press and media.

For most things, if its older than say 100 years, its typically not copyrighted anymore and sits in the public domain (this is not always true). Its always good to ask permission if you can, just to be safe, but some things you don't really need to worry about.

Are you planning on distributing this e-zine as a download, or are you going blog with it? Blogs probably have a lot less to worry about with copyright than a digital publication. Blogs using pictures from across the web has become mostly accepted, but if you're publishing something you should be more cautious.

These are just my general rules for dealing with copyright. Ask permission and cite the origin. I do not know much of the specifics on copyright law (You'd think it would be simple but we all know its not lol). Some members here are lawyers. They probably will be able to better guide you on this.

Copyright abuse (on both sides of the fence) has kind of gotten out of hand. My best suggestion is to talk to a lawyer if you're worried about it.

Read up UK copyright here...

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/copy.htm

The Fair Dealing exceptions may be useful to you.

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/copy/c-other/c-exception.htm

If you want to copy current affairs photos that may be a problem.

Thanks for the replies. Lordofhats, it's going to be a commercial downloadable mag, focusing on German Tanks, cheesy action films, Swayze, good food, 80s music etc none of the fashion advice/half naked popstars stuff you see on the shelves.

Which brings me neatly onto my next post - nobody's going to be claiming copy right for Nazi Germany, are they? If I stick up an old black and contempory picture of Rommel or a Fw190, will anybody care about copyright?

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:Which brings me neatly onto my next post - nobody's going to be claiming copy right for Nazi Germany, are they? If I stick up an old black and contempory picture of Rommel or a Fw190, will anybody care about copyright?

You should read into specifics in the links Killkrazy posted (I missed your British flag and do not know how similar US and UK copyright laws are).

Many historical photographs are held in private and public collections, and those collections may or may not like you using them without citation of where the photograph currently is held. I do not know if permission is necessary, that's something you should consult experts on. My safe bet baring expert testimony is to cite who provided the picture and where you got it from.

If you want to use pictures in your magazine, you basically have 3 options:

1) Take the pictures yourself or by an agent employed by you

2) Only use pictures in the public domain. This can be because the copyright expired (meaning the photographer died 70 years ago), or the rights have been nullified by the artist. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipediaublic_domain_image_resources for a whole ton of public domain image resources. Note: Many of these are still under copyright, but will allow free use if you site them properly.

3) Pay royalties for pictures. This can be anything from tracking down the actual photographer and paying them, to using things like istockphoto (and paying them), to paying the AP for images.

Most magazines don't have their own photographers, so there's plenty of resources for numbers 2 and 3.

In terms of using images of people, I'm not familiar with UK law. But, in the US, as long as that person doesn't have a reasonable expectation of privacy (like, they're in public), you're free to take as many pictures of them as you want and use them however you want.

Edit: Ha! The URL has a : followed by a P, which Dakka has rendered as . Don't worry, Wikipedia isn't sticking its tongue out at you.