#6 Copyright and Fair Use

 

Copyright in the Music and Fashion Industries along with Celebrities

        Copyright protects an individual's work such as text, images, music, novels, etc. When copyright is mentioned, the first thing that comes to mind is in the music industry or the fashion world. 

        In the music industry when you copyright your work, you have to copyright the lyrics and recordings separately. If you use or copy someone's same sound from a song that the author has copyrighted then you could likely be sued. If you are in the music industry and would like to use a sound from someone else's copyrighted work, then you have to go through the process of getting permission from the copyright holder. 

        In the fashion industry, you would think that you would be able to copyright your designs or a line of clothes done by an artist but as of right now you are not able to. This is why you see a lot of dupes of high-end brands. Some companies have trademarks that allow them to stand out from other companies with their logos and these logos are not allowed to be copied. 

        Several years ago, there was a copyright case between David Bowie and Freddie Mercury against Vanilla Ice concerning the openings of their songs. David Bowie and Queens's song, Under Pressure was the first song to be released, then Vanilla Ice came out with the song, Ice Ice Baby that had an identical intro. Vanilla Ice was confronted about the situation because he did not give credit to David Bowie, Freddie Mercury, or Queen for the song sample. Vanilla Ice denied the entire situation but then later came out and said that it was just supposed to be a "joke" and then had to cough up four million dollars after he admitted to sampling their work. 

        

        Gigi Hadid is a woman who just can't seem to escape the copyright infringement cases. It had been a little over two months since she had her second copyright case and then was being sued on September 13th for the third time. In this case, Hadid was sued for posting pictures from a paparazzi on her social media accounts. She did not own the rights to the photos even though they were pictures of her. Hadid would have needed a license or needed to receive permission to the rights of the photos by the photographer to be able to use the photos as she pleased. Some of our favorite celebrities like Jennifer Lopez and Justin Bieber have also been caught in similar situations. 

        You can find copyrighted materials almost anywhere you look. Whether it is in the music or fashion industry or owning the rights to photos of yourself in the celeb world you have to be careful and look for the copyright before you decide to "borrow" someone else work.