Intellectual Property
Section 2
Q: I recently filmed members of the public responding to a
questionnaire which I had prepared. I am going to be showing the
film to my peers and students in order to show them the difference
between responses received to "open" questions and those received
to 'closed' questions. Can I do this?
A: No. You cannot show the film until you have obtained the consent
of the members of the public that you filmed. These people have rights
in their spoken words which you have recorded and so made into
a literary work. You will also need their consent if you want to make
any copies of or to sell your film. The same rules would apply if you
recorded a person reading a book which you want to sell as an audio
book – that person would have performer's rights.
Database rights
These protect collections of work or data (e.g. results, samples or patient
information) which have been systematically arranged and are accessible
electronically or by other means. There is no need to register and
protection lasts for 15 years from the date the database was compiled.
If you substantially alter a database, the 15 year protection period will
begin to run again from the date you made the changes.
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