09/14/2024
From the editor: Copyright matters, and this is why
Authors, painters, poets, directors, web creators, architects, manufacturers and, yes, newspapers, are just a few of the stakeholders who have an interest in protecting their copyrighted material. But why?
First, a definition: Copyrighted material, such as the stories, photos, advertisements and other content in The Cullman Times are a protected form of intellectual property: the content is created either by us or a subsidiary from which we have copyright permission — permission to reproduce published content that we paid for.
This is one reason for copyright, then: It’s an economic story. Content creators expend personal and professional resources to create and publish their creations. At The Cullman Times, for example, we employ dozens of full-time, part-time and free-lance workers across multiple departments who work, worship, live, shop and pay taxes in our community. And this, of course, with all of the other expenses that come with keeping the lights on and running a business that serves a vital niche in Cullman County — providing our community with the trusted, accurate, relevant and timely news, legal notices and advertising we all need to live our daily lives.
But this isn’t where the story begins and ends. Indeed, it’s not even the largest part of the overall story. The real importance of copyright for a newspaper and others is how the content we create is presented in a fair and — outside of our opinion pages — unbiased package to our readers. If copyright owners allowed others to infringe on their creations without permission, that content could easily be usurped and monetized in ways antithetical to the mission of the owner, which in the case of the Times, is to relay information you can trust when you need it.
But this doesn’t mean we rule our content with an iron fist. Because we believe that our core mission is the dispensing of information, we often share our content at no charge with those who request permission and have our same intentions. You will often find our news stories and photos in material presented by others such as our chamber of commerce, Good Samaritan Health Clinic, myriad churches and other organizations with whom we partner to inform our community. Beyond this, newspapers have a long history of sharing content with other publications, especially those with which they are aligned and affiliated. A good example of this might be the exchange of photos between sports editors from a football game in another community that one or the other couldn’t staff.
All of this is done with, first, permission and, second, published credit for the copyright owner. This is why we credit a story we use from The Associated Press. We pay for their content which gives us permission, and then we clearly label the content as coming from the AP.
Copyright, then, is important. It’s how newspapers and other content producers are able to produce the information we live by.
Not everybody believes it should be that way. There are some who feel that any published content should be free and fair game without compensation or credit. This is inaccurate. Nike, for example, would not long exist were it to allow its branded swoosh to be used without oversight.
Recently, a page information aggregator called out The Cullman Times, and by name our news editor, Amanda Shavers, for protecting our copyrighted material.
We understand that mistakes can happen or that some of those who feel the need to publish information might not be aware of the law. In those situations, our first response is to alert the site, page or publication that they are using our content without copyright permission and request that they remove the material. And not surprisingly, many good partnerships have come from these conversations.
Yet when we asked the owners of the recent page posting to remove a Times photo they had posted out of context and without our permission, the response was to deny that copyright law exists in the form it does. And then double-down by altering the image, crediting Artificial Intelligence and claiming that the altered image was now copyright free. This is not the law, and because it’s not, our recourse was to alert the host site of the infringement.
The local posting site then tripled-down, indicating that because of this, we were to blame for interfering with their ability to post (our copyrighted) material on their site.
Quadrupling down, they then made it personal, incorrectly calling out Ms. Shavers specifically for these actions.
Yes, Ms. Shavers made the alert, but as news editor, that’s her job in representing The Cullman Times — a representation she performs extraordinarily well, as indicated by her leadership and oversight in bringing The Cullman Times to a noted Newspaper of General Excellence level as cited by Alabama Press Association, and our Cullman Magazine to Magazine of the Year honors in national contests for several years running.
All of this is to say, copyright matters. It allows us to serve you, our loyal readers, with news and information you can trust. This is not only our job, it’s what we at The Cullman Times believe in: factual, non-altered, non-AI-generated content produced and shared ethically with our community.
Authors, painters, poets, directors, web creators, architects, manufacturers and, yes, newspapers, are just a few of the stakeholders who have an interest in protecting their copyrighted material. But why?
