AS THE EDITOR and publisher of The Filipino Australian, I was asked today if I will allow sharing of an interview I conducted with the newly elected president of the Philippine Communities Council of New South Wales Arturo Sayas.
Mr Sayas was elected president last Saturday, February 11 and I had the interview completed yesterday, February 14. Meanwhile, a group of media representatives was planning to organise a press conference with the newly elected officers.
The reason for the request was obviously to save others from having “to conduct a press conference… Mr Sayas already answering almost all the questions our community wanted to ask…”
Here is my response to the request which I hope also outlines our position on copyrights, “fair dealing”, and Creative Commons.
There are two ways of sharing: Sharing by way of writing a story based on the story, and sharing by way of re-printing.
What I would like to outline here is not about sharing, but rather about principles and copyrights.
I hope after viewing the entirety of this message, you will understand my position about news sharing.
FAIR DEALING
1. As we all know, we cannot prevent others from using the interview or other articles in TFA (or from other publications in fact) when writing their stories based on the “fair dealing” principle.
2. It is expected (and required) however that in the “stories on the stories” (to be published, to be read over radio programs, to be presented on TV or to be podcast), the source of the story should be attributed to me as the “creator” and to The Filipino Australian where it appeared.
*** ON THIS POINT: It may interest you to know that this is what Australian, Philippine and US news agencies are doing. I have known this all along. This practice has recently been cofnirmed to me by an associate. She also receives emails from her friends and sorority sisters from the Philippines and elsewhere quoting TFA as the source of Philippine and United States news. We at TFA are of course happy as others use us as their source, albeit with almost no investment on their part at all.
*** They write stories based on The Filipino Australian stories and then give attribution to The Filipino Australian as “based on report of the news site, The Filipino Australian,… ” with link to our website or the TFA story URL.
*** The practice of these major publications is really what “fair dealing” (Australia) or “fair use” (USA) is all about.
3. To do otherwise, ie, no attribution or worst re-printing the story without permission, will not only be a violation of copyrights which encompass “fair dealing” (or “fair use”), but this may also consequently lead to a loss of credibility and in some cases, financial liability, to the writer, publisher, radio, TV broadcaster or podcaster, especially if the copyright owner legally enforces his/her rights and then publicly announce the case about the illegal use of his/her works.
REPRINTING
It will be a different case if others would like to re-print the interview or other TFA stories.
Reprinting would require -
1. Written permission from us for each individual post or stories. No blanket or across the board permission for all articles is ever given.
2. Attribution like the following -
Source: TheFilipinoAustralian.com
These conditions are part of our reprinting permission at http://thefilipinoaustralian.com/news/index.php/terms-of-use/
On a similar issue: Like other publications, we take copyrights seriously. A written permission is required from the copyright owner/s to use photos and other graphics. We are happy to share photos, graphics and other scanned images at emanila, The Filipino Australian, and other emanila websites — subject to obtaining a written permission from us as copyright owners.
WHAT HAPPENS TO CREATIVE COMMONS?
We recognise that Creative Commons increase sharing, re-mixing, re-using, and collaboration, especially in the Internet.
But we at emanila / The Filipino Australian have not embraced Creative Commons as of date.
We are looking into the implications and ramifications of Creative Commons to our operations and to our publishing rights and copyrights.
But until such time we display the Creative Commons logo, then it is our Terms of Use that apply with regard to use and re-printing of our materials.
Please note: Nobody can be forced to accept Creative Commons!
What do you think? Should we now move to adopting Creative Commons?
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