Yesterday I had the good fortune to take part in the SIIA's Certified Content Rights Manager Course. I've long been interested in copyright issues and permissions and am glad to see an organization like the SIIA offer a certification course on this topic. The course covers copyright law, infringement, and content licenses and then delves into managing and maintaining a content rights management plan within your organization.
Content rights management is a relatively new concept and term, although the protection of intellectual property certainly is not (see Constitution of the United States, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8). I believe that most companies obey copyright law and would not intentionally pirate content or break a license agreement. But I also believe that some employees might not consider some of their actions as copyright infringement:
- sharing passwords
- emailing
- peer-to-peer software
- DRM circumvention
Employers should be pro-active with content rights management. It's important to remember that employers are responsible for employees' actions and ignorance is not a valid excuse. I've heard people claim that the fair use doctrine will cover "negligible" acts (though there is little that is negligible with the activities listed above). But it's risky to think that fair use can be used as a defense in any business context. And only a judge can determine fair use after a copyright suit has been brought to trial.
Two slides in the presentation particularly illustrate the financial costs associated with copyright infringement (click on images to enlarge):
The SIIA actively enforces corporate anti-piracy and offers a great list of FAQs that every president and CEO should take a minute to read. Also interesting are three high-profile legal cases involving copyright infringement within an organization:
- Lowry's Reports, Inc. v. Legg Mason, Inc.
- American Geophysical Union v. Texaco, Inc.
- Wall Data Inc. V. Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department
Educating employees about content rights and taking the time to conduct a copyright inventory should be on everyone's to-do list this year.
Click here to learn more or register for the class.
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