g7uk » copyright

Speaker of the US House of Representatives infringes rights of music composer

GS — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 13:27:09 +0000

Incompetech.com is a wonderful website that offers hundreds of original music tracks for free use. Most are released under a Creative Commons licence (a few are now in the public domain) and the only stipulation is that you must include a credit for the composer: Kevin MacLeod.

It isn’t a lot to ask. But

Content theft by reelstreets.com

GS — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:12:52 +0000

Possible guide to fees for ‘user generated content’?

GS — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 02:12:21 +0000

Here’s a figure to keep in mind if a TV producer asks to use your photo or video.

Guardian up to its old tricks with photographic competitions and copyright

GS — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 05:39:33 +0000

Back in April I highlighted how the Guardian, Hewlett Packard and Lonely Planet were grabbing a ‘worldwide irrevocable perpetual licence’ in entries to a photographic competition they were running.

Strange grey blur and circles on photographs

GS — Mon, 21 May 2007 12:29:20 +0000

These are three photographs that I took on 11 February 2004 at about 6pm. At the time I thought they were rather odd and sent them to a few friends. Now it seems that other people have experienced strange circles and ‘orbs’ on digital images, so I thought I would publish them with some information.

Manchester’s Odeon cinema subjected to a damaging ‘systematic and methodical’ assault to prevent preservation

GS — Sat, 19 May 2007 16:18:37 +0000

Manchester’s former Odeon cinema, on Oxford Street, has been subjected to a ‘systematic and methodical’ assault to prevent it being preserved, according to the man who tried to save it.

Photographer loses image library in fire — how safe is your audio and visual data?

GS — Wed, 16 May 2007 09:59:53 +0000

As a photographer myself, I broke out into a cold sweat reading how this poor man lost most of his image library in the Lever Street fire. Equipment can be replaced but unique transparencies, negatives and digital images can’t be.

Free books

GS — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 02:03:51 +0000

Project Gutenberg has 20,000 free out-of-copyright books online. Page By Page Books is also worth a visit.

How submitting your video content to the BBC could cost you money

GS — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 21:57:42 +0000

Quality content and creativity are valuable things. If you need proof, just look at the millions of pounds that businesses earn from back catalogues of music, films, TV shows and news footage.

Here Come the Double Deckers

GS — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 23:02:43 +0000

One of my favourite TV programmes as a kid.

As far as I can make out, this series has never been released on video or DVD in the UK (and probably not in the US either). The last time I remember it being on terrestrial TV here was in the Granada ITV region in 1990.

This is one of a vast number of British television programmes and films that remain unseen, languishing in a vault somewhere. There are British films that I’ve never been able to watch and there is no way to see them because they are not available anywhere.

As a content producer myself I understand the need for copyright. But, is it right that companies can deny us access to our cultural heritage and prevent us from viewing these for decades? Simply because they can’t be bothered, or can’t make a profit by releasing them.

There should be some way for people to see these. Either require the companies to make a copy available that people can borrow from a local library. Or make it legal to share non-profit copies of commercially unavailable material.