Know your legal rights and responsibilities - writer and attorney Daniel Sitarz, expert on desktop publishing legal issues - includes related article on desktop publishing resources - Desktop Publishing - interview

Home Office Computing, July, 1991 by Steve Morgenstern

i recently read The Desktop Publisher's Legal Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide to Computer Publishing Law, and I was impressed by attorney Daniel Sitarz's relatively jargon-free explanation of the legal concerns that anyone involved in desktop publishing should understand. As if being a lawyer who gives explanations in plain English isn't good enough, Sitarz is also a successful desktop publisher who produced the book himself (did a nice job, too). We arranged a talk about legal protections and pitfalls for desktop publishers.

COPYRIGHT PROTECTION

Steven Morgenstern: How does copyright law protect the desktop publisher?

Daniel Sitarz: Copyright is probably the most important protection a desktop publisher can obtain. It's also the easiest.

Copyright is simply a protection of the right to make copies. It gives the copyright owner the exclusive right to make any copies of the work, to make derivative works based on the original work, or to offer the work for sale. The range of material covered by copyright law is very broad--it's basically available for original works of creative expression, and that can include literary work, drama, music, and so on.

In 1976 there was a major change in copyright law. Now the actual creation of something provides it with its copyright. In other words, simply printing something out with your computer means that the information is automatically copyrighted. However, it is much safer in the long run to actually print the copyright notice on anything you want to disseminate publicly and then go register it with the Copyright Office.

SM: How do I copyright material?

DS: Registration is a relatively simple matter of filling out a two-page form, sending in $10, and providing a copy of the published material. What they ask for is the "best copy" of whatever it is you're copyrighting. In other words, if it is a book to be published in soft cover, the Copyright Office doesn't want simply the drat computer printout--they demand an actual published copy of the bok or the newsletter, or whatever. And while that registration can be done any time within five years, registering the copyright within three months provides additional protection: You are entitled to sue for an additional $50,000 in damages in a copyright-infringement lawsuit if the copyright as registered within three months of publication.

SM: And I can pretty much handle copyrighting by myself, without an attorney?

DS: Copyright registration, definitely. If more than one or two people are involved in the copyright, or if different contract rights are involved, an attorney might be necessary. But for most simple publications--newsletters, pamphlets, brochures, even books that are written by one or two people--the forms are fairly self-explanatory with the instructions that are provided.

SM: In a publication that includes several separate articles or sections, such as a newsletter, do you copyright each article separately or the work as a whole?

DS: It can be done either way--it depends on whether contributing authors would prefer to retain the copyright on their individual articles themselves. For instance, an author may want to sell you just the one-time rights to put an article in your newsletter and retain the copyright. Most newsletter and retain the copyright. Most newsletter just use an umbrella technique and copyright the publication article by article if there are ownership issues involved.

SM: Do you register each issue of a periodical separately, or can you just send in, say, the first issue and receive continuing protection?

DS: No, each issue is considered a separate work and has to be separately copyrighted.

SM: Does it pay to copyright brochures or pamphlets you create to promote your business?

DS: Only if you think the way in which you expressed the ideas in the brochure could potentially be used by someone else. Otherwise copyrighting is sort of overdoing it. However, while you might not want to actually register a copyright on a brochure, there's no harm in putting a copyright notice on it. That gives you a level of legal protection that's one step below formal copyright.

QUOTING FROM OTHERS

SM: Many desktop publishers use copyrighted information as reference in their own work. How free are we to use this published source material?

DS: That comes under what is known as the "fair use doctrine" in copyright law. Although it is really somewhat difficult to apply it in all situations, what it comes down to, in a general sense, is avoiding plagiarism.

You can use copyrighted information relatively freely for certain purposes--for research, or for simply reporting as in a reference in a newsletter. You can use it for teaching, and you can use it for criticism--say, a critical article outlining an opinion about something else that has been published. Those uses are acceptable without obtaining permission from the owner.

There is still a question, though, when it comes to how much you can quote an article, say, in a book review, or how much you can use the underlying research in your own article. It's pretty much a judgment call based on the nature of the work that you're dealing with and how much you're using. The best rule of thumb is that, if what you are quoting is integral to the article or the book you are quoting from, then you need permission. If it's just a small segment used in research or criticism or reporting or teaching, it can be used without permission. If what you are ding is a commercial publication, though, not related to research or reporting or criticizing or teaching, permission is required at all times.