Overall I enjoyed the video. A word on sewing patterns being subject to copyright... the patterns themselves are NOT copyrightable; however! The illustrations and instructions are! This article from Ohio State University has a pretty good rundown and links within to explain the intricacies of it: library.osu.edu/site/copyright/2014/07/14/patterns-and-copyright-protections/
This was a FASCINATING read and really important! Thanks so much for this. This is exactly the kind of nonsense that makes copyright so hard to figure out! Pinning this comment for folks to see and reference if they need.
@@LizCapism I'm glad I can be of help! This was a rabbit hole I went down about 10 or 15 years ago and it's really fascinating. See also: the selvage edge of fabrics trying to tell you what you can do with the fabric. (spoiler: they can't!)
This article was so helpful! Copyright was a huge discussion in the knitting community a few years ago. I distinctly remember that sharing patterns among friends was a violation and not part of “personal use.” This explains why (a combination of photos and Terms&conditions), clarifying a part of the video for me. Thanks!
However, that depends where you are. For eg, where I am, in the UK, patterns *are* under copyright. I checked with our Patent Office (as it was then - now the Intellectual Property Office) a few years ago. Conversely, the design that the pattern is for (if it's a new design) would come under design-right, not copyright. Edit: granted, using it on a website *probably* comes under US law, because most of the big web companies make you agree to that when signing up, BUT if you're good with US law, but violating local laws, they can still come after you.
I am a lawyer and there is nothing I hate more than copyright law lol this was an excellent run down, and I learned a lot! Excellent and succinct (and reaffirmed my decision not to go into that area of law 😅)
Fun fact: there are a handful of Sherlock Holmes stories that are considered public domain in the UK but will not be considered public domain in the US until next year because of how different the laws are in those two countries.
I’m guessing this has something to do with the additional “option” of 95 years after publication, which means that even though Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died in 1930, meaning his works became public domain in 2000, US copyright law seems to imply that for works published in the last 25 years of the creator’s lifetime, the applicable term isn’t the usual life+70 years, but 95 years after publication.
Speaking tangentially, a moment of silence for all the horrid Spirit Halloween/Part City costumes that now have free reign to be labeled as “Great Gatsby” costumes because the book is now public domain...
Purrrfect ! I hate "source Pinterest" with the heat of many suns, knowing full well from my best friend's experience that once it's on pinterest, you can never have it taken down.
I'm an academic Librarian so this is very exciting for me! I deal with explaining copyright to people all the time, and most of the time it's the dreaded "but it's fair use!" conversation. Copyright cares naught for our intentions! I appreciate your touching on citing things. Everyone should always cite their things; preferably in writing, in an understandable and consistent style.
I know of a RU-vidr in another country being sued by Disney. He had no idea he was infringing on US copyright law. He is simply sharing how he makes his leather crafts and is law abiding. (He’s not selling it and there’s barely any viewers.) I never cared for the way Disney operated starting way back with Walt. It was and still is all about money. The pervious CEO said it himself, he only cared about money and ran Disney as such. Disney itself copied many fables from other countries and then monetized the heck out of them. (Never gave them credits and then did a poor job depicting the characters/stories/history.) What Disney stand for is money, power and manipulate rules to benefit itself. It’s deplorable. Thank you Liz, for clarifying the rabbit hole that is copy right law. This is such an important aspect to understand especially for RU-vidrs.
Finally! The video we've all been waiting for...and I can guarantee that I'll be needing to watch that one *at least* once more, plus several occasional references in the coming months! Great job, as usual :-)
I love using the vintage sewing manuals on archive.gov. I can print the pages I need or search for keywords so I’m not scrolling through hundreds of pages. This was a great video and really helped me- I’ve been struggling with creating content that’s interesting and informative without infringing copyright.
I love reading through all the ladies journals available on archive. I'm in research mode for a big 1880s project and have been reading through the Peterson's Magazines for all sorts of tidbits and ideas.
I freaking love LibriVox oh my god. I’m currently listening to the Anne of Green Gables series and Jane Austen books on the LibriVox app. Highly highly recommend
Copyright is such a complex subject. I'm glad you spent some time on Disney, as they are currently being very nasty about the royalties for Alan Dean Foster, and some of the other authors of Star Wars novels. I can't think of any public domain works that I've explored recently, but I did stay through to the end. I really enjoy learning. Well done!
The other issue with this is trademark infringement. By law, trademarks have to be "vigorously defended" or you can lose them. This is one of the main reasons IP owners are so fierce about protecting their trademarks and copyrights. Trademark is another rabbit hole that is crazy to go down. If I had nickel for every crafter who tried to rationalize why they were just fine with infringing copyrights AND trademarks.... UGH.
Rhapsody In blue became public domain in 2019 and it brought me joy to know I could just splash it all over my Instagram videos with abandon. And I haven't. Lol
I was once discussing copyright with a creator friend of mine. She told me if her company did not make fans take down copies, her company could lose rights to their own work. So even though they don't care about fans having fun, they have to sic their lawyer on the fans to be able to make a living from their own creations. It's definitely a very deep rabbit hole even within one country. I'm very fond of filk and song parodies, and I don't even want to know what the legal situation is when you are using an existing song and swapping out the lyrics for your own.
Thanks for this video; it's such necessary information! I had to put the same information into a 15-minute lesson for elementary school students when I worked as a school librarian in 2019 ... so difficult! I wasn't able to include all the same information in my lesson because I realized that if I reminded the students to "cite their sources" they didn't know what that meant ... So, well done on squeezing so much information into a very watchable video! Also, I noticed during 2020 that The Internet Archive may not be as reliable a source for copyright-free books and images as it once was. In the midst of the pandemic when physical bookstores and libraries were shut down, the staff at the Internet Archive made the decision to scan as many recent publications (still under copyright) as possible and make them available for free to the public, without waiting lists or other limits, under a project called The National Emergency Library, without the permission of the copyright holders of those books. Their reasoning was that the pandemic provided an unprecedented emergency situation that negated the necessity for respecting copyright laws in the face of the general public losing access to libraries. In June, The Internet Archive was sued for mass copyright infringement: www.npr.org/2020/06/03/868861704/publishers-sue-internet-archive-for-mass-copyright-infringement They took down the National Emergency Library project as a result but I don't know if they left the copyrighted material in their regular collection.
I've taken a copyright class and the book was quite heavy. You did an excellent job in summarizing the confusing world of copyright. Sometimes my brain hurt just from reading that book. I remember something about even after the content creators death the copyright is still good for 70 years. As for something in the public domain how about all the images released by the Smithsonian. They were released in February last year.
Thank you so much. Copyright is a convoluted mess. I worked in the History and Art section of my library at the start of my career, and frequently had to break the news of how messy researching it was, and how expensive and time consuming it could be. Our official response to requests for help with this was "I'm afraid we are not able to give legal advice, I can help you find listings for copyright lawyers if you like"
This came at the perfect time! I’m starting a channel and I was wondering about these exact things. I’m very thankful for all of you work it is very useful.
My fave public domain work is the Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle. I also enjoy the ballads, tho obviously the academic printings thereof are copyrighted with all the annotations and whatnot included. You crammed so much info into this video. I absolutely applaud your dedication.
"To have things that are only yours, regardless of fame or fortune, living or dead, is a precious right that I feel must be preserved." Thoroughly and heartily agree!!
(As an artist, I get a bit nauseous at the idea of someone taking and publishing bits of an artist's sketchbook or a writer's notebook after their death without permission. Where whatever you've been drafting can be taken with no context, in an unfinished form, and in a particularly bad case, people looking at it could come to wild conclusions about your intent and who you are as a person that may well have horrified you if you were alive to hear it, and there's no way for you to directly refute it. THAT SAID, people who say "yes, you can publish my sketches when I'm gone" are treasures, and I love them and want to do the same.)
Thank you so much for this! My favorite public domain anything is Sherlock Holmes. (Well, all but the last ten stories are PD) I can read those over and over!
Thank you for making this video! It was really informative and takes away some of our fear of adding images to our videos. You're outtakes are so much better than ours. We just curse 😂
I loved hearing about this!! My favourite public domain funf act is the Great Gatsby is now public domain, so he can just... appear in your novel to save the day
Everyone absolutely stop what you’re doing and go watch the “Don’t say Velcro” video on the Velcro Brand channel for a perfect explanation on why these companies are obligated to take legal steps
In Norwegian we don’t use the brand name; our word for the stuff is “borrelås”, meaning “burr-lock”, and the first part of the word is from the plant that inspired it.
Oh my gosh, the amount of work that must have gone into this video...I'm blown away. What a phenomenal resource for those of us new to the 'Tubes! Thank you so much for the research and headaches you underwent on our behalf!
Great video! Thank you for your hard work! One resource I use a lot is imslp.org, mostly for public domain music scores, but it also has recordings. It is hosted in Canada, so everything there is PD in Canada, but it will include warnings if it's not in other countries.
Thank you. I had no idea how a simple RU-vid video could be so complicated. It seems you have to be constantly looking over you shoulder for the copyright police, or else doing a tremendous amount of research to remain legal. I really appreciate the amount of work you put into this.
This was such a fascinating topic! Thank you for taking the time to create and compile this introductory peek at copyright, Liz! I think when it comes to laws in general, a lot of creators don't tend to delve any further than basic information because it's a little overwhelming or tedious to sift through everything in order to find what they're looking for, so I'm quite glad you were able to explain it in a digestible way. A lot of what you've broached have lit the lightbulb in my head too, haha! It brings to mind how fanfiction is dealt with as a means to explore or rewrite canon works (an example of a good platform being archiveofourown.org, or the Organization of Transformative Works) but I'm sure that in itself is its own rabbit-hole! I really enjoy watching your video essays! I can't wait for the next one! c:
Thank you! As a retired librarian intellectual property rights are very important to me. But I have not had any personal concerns since the dark ages of print in my academic days! This was most informative and well told. Thank you
As a person who is attempting to start their own RU-vid channel, this video is very, Very, VERY helpful. Oh, and I love how you included one of my favorite authors, Sir Terry Pratchett. Thank you.
Thank you for tackling the *monumental* beast that is this set of regulations! . . . signed, "someone who spent no less than two hours sourcing 3 entire hopefully non-copyrighted reference images to display in the *one* 20th-century dress video she has made, and is NEVER doing one again"
Very helpful thanks! Also, a great public domain rec would be 'The Scarlet Pimpernel' recording by Karen Savage on Librivox.org . I enjoyed her narration!
I stuck around 'til the end. WOW! What a fascinating topic. Recently someone in one of my FB sewing groups asked if they were allowed to use a historically inspired pattern which they bought from and independent pattern designer to sew dresses that they would put up for sale. The argument that resulted was very interesting and about as complicated as the topics you covered in this video. Great video!
Wow, what a lot of work you did! I also love Librivox, especially when it's less common stuff I can't find in my library (like trying to read everything Elizabeth Gaskell ever published, not just her major novels),. Also glad you mentioned archive.org and Project Gutenberg.
@@LizCapism I have a big cross-disciplinary project in the works (very early stage) that I'd like to share with CosTube hopefully later this year, covid willing. I'd love to pick your brain about your writing process some time.
This was very good. You managed to give a lot of information in a very short period of time. We ran into copyright law over a project we were working on and one nastier law... ITAR. (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) Yes, a sewing project hit that one as well. We were working on a 'space suit'. So, I applaud you on the effort and frustrations you went through to produce this wonderful video.
One I adore to listen over and over and over again in libre voice recordings is "Sense and Sensibility", there's an specific narrator that does it quite beautifully. The Popol Vuh is another, thou is a little bit more difficult to find, but the poetry and the story is divine.
Nice job tackling an often misunderstood topic. I may need to show this video to any future exchange students we host to help them better understand plagiarism. (A concept not found in many areas around the world.) Other random thoughts-- I was just telling someone today about Librivox- I agree it is hit or miss with the readers, but love it for classic works. And also a bit more for anyone who isn't aware: One of the reasons Disney is so litigious has to do with Disney losing the rights to Oswald the lucky Rabbit (pre Mickey character) and never wanting that to happen again.
Thank you for doing battle with the beast that is copy right so that we of the costume community can learn and understand how it fits in to what we do. And hugs for the tangent about the importance of Islamic culture saving much of the classics works from being lost and of making many contributions that benefit us to this day. Well done!!👏
Thank you! I do so utterly appreciate this! I'm pondering how to get started, and you are simply saving me from ending up in the tar pit. One of my items is inspired by a crocheted yoke from a Victorian garment shreded to pieces by time and wear. The picture I used as inspiration was not in the public domain, however, but rather a piece someone was trying to sell patterns of on etsy... Thanks again!
Thank you! I enjoyed the whole thing. Although I'm unlikely to need it, I am interesting in watching videos of people who do. Now I can better understand why they present illustraions as they do and how they choose what to use in illustration. Your hard work in this is awsome and appreciated.
This is fantastic! Thank you for tackling it! Its so dense and twitchy that I’ve only really looked in to it for my main hobby. This is such a nice overview for makers of all kinds!
I was dreading getting into this topic so much and I cannot believe that you tackled that beast in such clear, understandable way. Thank you so much 😃 As a Cosplayer you don't get around these issues and I feel a little more secure on that matter now
Wow, what a lot of work. And such am important topic. Good job. I enjoy librivox a lot while sewing and knitting, and if I happen to like the book I normally end up buying the official audiobook. Unfortunatly modern media make copyright issues really easy and it can be really annoying for artists and creators to find their works in the craziest of contents. So thank you for making the costubers aware, Yours Fanny
As an Intellectual-Property-Lawyer-turned-Dress-History-Scholar.... I SALUTE YOU!!! Tremendous work here, Liz. Well done!!! 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏 For anyone who cares to dig deeper on wider issues surrounding copyright - both at RU-vid and The Whole Wide World level - and how it all works, I highly recommend Tom Scott's video here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-1Jwo5qc78QU.html (I'm not kidding when I say this video is one of my all-top Top 10 favourites videos on RU-vid, hands down. Okay, I'm weird that way.)
I watch a lot of both media criticism videos and also reaction videos (I love seeing other people react to something I love, it’s like getting a little bit of that first time back again). And fair use comes into this a lot. I think it was Cold Crash Pictures (I think, I’m seeing his face in my head anyway) who explained rather well (in some video I can’t remember, likely about some other topic) about what counts as “transformative”, and also about that fourth part of fair use law. Basically- just reproducing something isn’t transformative, but adding critique to it is. And it’s also what gets you around part 4- because a critique of a movie doesn’t replace the original movie. And reactions work the same way. They also deal very heavily with the “how much” issue- with reactions to shows and movies, they often blur or cut to specific scenes so they aren’t showing the entire episode/movie (which helps get them around both 2 and 4), and also to get them around 1- because it is their reaction that transforms the work into something that is its own thing and also doesn’t compete with the original. As for my favourite public domain things- there’s an online printing press of socialist and anarchist theory and books. It’s freely available because that comports rather well with the intention of the original authors (not being fans of private property- that is, property one can make profit from, not personal property which is something else entirely). Everything from Das Kapital to The Conquest of Bread is available there, though for the life of me, I can’t remember the name of the archive.
Thank you so much for spending your time and resources to write this script and record the video! Copyright law is moot filled with alligators and piranhas ona good day, and this video certainly made a lot of things a lot clearer than they were before, especially in the context of why certain pictures can't be included in the videos and need to be cited in the description. With regards to favourite public domain book, will not be original in saying, it is Austen. Project Gutenberg really did help a lot with trying to get copies of her books back in the days when I was just learning English and wanted to test myself in reading her works in original, but had no means and possibility to buy and import the printed books.
Great job explaining a convoluted subject. I can well believe you've been working on it for many months. The scope of things available on Project Guttenburg and Internet Archives is amazing. I've come across some unexpected gems.
I just want to link this to Leonard French our friendly neighborhood copyright attorney. Because I’m impressed, this was clear and understandable. Copyright law is by and large, none of that. 😊
Thanks for the explanation, good to know! I have no interesting copyright facts, except that at university we were not allowed to copy sections of our own earlier papers because it was considered palgiarism. So when I recycled that info I just quoted myself with reference XD
If you haven't read Pathfinders by Jim Al-Khalili, you should! It's a great little history- and science-oriented look into the golden age of the Arabic world. He covers the House of Wisdom and its origins pretty extensively.
I worked for a while in the 'Paint Party' industry.... ergh, the number of people insisting they weren't breaching copyright because they 'changed 10% of the image'. Despite having very generous licencing agreements, the artist I worked with eventually needed to employ a copyright lawyer to dish out cease and desist letters.
Some like it hot! Lol you literally shorted my brain putting that in. I cant even explain why I like such a problematic movie but I do. Its not even a nostalgia thing. I saw it as an adult. But um, yes, anyone, copy right... nope I can literally think of nothing but that movie and other movies it makes me think of now. Whoops. In all seriousness thank you for the video and resource. Also, any chance your read for an audiobook? Cause I love hearing your voice. Its the right mix of engaging and calming.
Brilliant work you've done here on a tremendously complicated subject (I'm studying to be a librarian and I did NOT enjoy the modules on copyright). I really enjoyed a librivox.org of Bram Stoker's Dracula - it was fabulous with different narrators for the different people.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is probably one of my favorites of all time. I also love Librivox and Heather Ordover of the CraftLit podcast is a fantastic literature professor who uses some of their readings of public domain works for a literary analysis of the works. Highly recommend! Her series of The Count of Monte Cristo is wonderful!
I am a school librarian and I love you. May I recommend this video to all my high schoolers (to say I told you so) and teachers who are so confused when it comes to e-teaching during a plague? Thank you!
Thank you so much for all the hard work you put into this! I am seriously impressed. Also, can I just say how much I love that you look at CosTube topics from a perspective very like my own - I, too, am a Lit geek, and I look at everything through that lens (as one does). So I analyze and critique and so on as I would a piece of literature. And of course, there's something about you clearly being a Gifted person, whose thought processes are similar to my own in many ways.
One story that always fascinates me about the availability of books in Medieval and Renaissance Europe is that the journals of Ibn Batuta and Ibn Fadlan were written in the Iron Age...but didn't make it to most western scholars until the late 20th century!! Ancient and medieval middle eastern intellectual life is FASCINATING! Algebra is based on an Arabic word and the Persians were credited with inventions of things including air conditioning and possibly even electroplating!!
It's so important to recognize this! We had this weird idea that the rest of the world were still in the stone ages until white folks came along and told them what's what. And it's just not true in any way. The more we remind ourselves of that, the better off we will all be.
Hive-mind feedback request - the workaround I've come up with for clothing/costume inspiration is to create my own illustration of that image. Therefore it's an interpretation of a photograph that I created. Therefore I can use my illustration of a copywrite image??? Would that work as an argument? Or am I just deluding myself? Thanks! - Cathy (&, accidently, Steve), Ottawa/Bytown
And that's a coffee from me! Very informative, the amount of work put in this video must have been staggering. Good luck and am looking forward to seeing more of your content in the future...
Really enjoyed this video. So interesting and I learned alot. I will be watching it again as there is soooo much info in it and I want to make sure I got all the info in my notes. I also subscribed to your channel! Thank you so much.
Such an interesting topic. Leonard French has many good videos on the subject, though probably not especially relevant to costuming or historybounding. Thank you for the video, and for including the Ohio State link.
So, if I show your video at my presentation for creators in my local library; that's copyright violation? (P.S. I am not doing such a presentation nor am I likely to be asked to address such a subject. Just asking because you did such a wonderful job. I would give my auditors a link and they would just watch on their own devices. :) )
Thank you for your awesome video. My first deep delve into copyright law was HP Lovecraft... whose works should be in the public domain now, but some may not be? I still don't know.
I remember in college when I getting my BA in painting and drawing we were told if you changed an image 10% you could then use it, but who was going to judge this 10% or how you would tell if changed this percentage. I think we might have learned this when we talked about artworks like Fountain by Marcel Dunchamps, a ordinary urinal that he signed R. Mutt to.
Your professors were misinformed. It’s the other way around. You can only use up to 10% of the work. Scroll to section E. sites.umgc.edu/library/libhow/copyright.cfm
@@hotjanuary No, You two are talking about different things. When someone makes changes that qualify an item to be called A New Work Of Art, they become copyright holders for this work. The amount of change is hard to determine but I've also seen the 10% estimate. Example: Re-publishing 19th C books and selling them with the claim that scanning and then editing the images is sufficient change to claim those books as a separate work. See the Univ of Glasgo publication: eprints.gla.ac.uk/96570/ citing court cases (for UK)
Got to the end but as in illustrator I have had to learn about copyright law and contracting rights. As for public domain--i listened to the Moonstone by Wilkie Collins via the podcast Phoebe Reads A Mystery. The host Reads from project gutenberg. (Also thank you for sharing your research and reading it aloud so I can sew along)
Thank you so much. We do love librivox it has some amazing things.We use it every night, for one story or another, we have slept through Pride and Prejudice read by Karen Savage so many times her voice is perfect and calming. Hahaah
