opyright

The creator of an original piece of work has exclusive rights to it, anyone who wishes touse this piece of work will have to gain permission from the owner, this can easily bedeclined. However, this is usually for a limited time, they will not always own the piece ofwork, although for a while they will receive financial benefits and credentials for it, alongwith other related rights. Items that are subject to copyright are identified by thesymbol, ‘©.’ This is a legal concept so anyone who uses something that is subject tocopyright without being granted permission are technically stealing.

In order to use my chosen song of Stooshe – Black Heart, I will have to contact theirrecord label to seek permission to be able to use this song in my media production.Stooshe’s current record label are ‘Warner Music Group’, this is the record label in which Iwill have to contact to seek this permission. I am going to do this in the form of either aletter or an email, I may even produce both in order to greater my chances of getting incontact with them. As they are a major global music and entertainment conglomerateheadquartered in New York City, therefore my chances of a reply could be slim.

What are the consequences if you break the copyright law?Depending on what you have done, you might experience one or more of the following:

• A legal Cease and Desist letter warning you that you have broken the law - for online copyright infringement, thisletter is also sent to your host, search engines, and your advertising networks, and often ends up with your entiresite or host getting shut down and removed from the search engines permanently• Payment of various fines - this depends on the court and other parties involved, such as universities and schools• Payment of "actual damages" to the person you stole from - this includes anything they had to pay while catchingyou and any money that you made by selling their work as your own• Payment of "statutory damages" to the person you stole from - this includes more abstract ideas such as lostwages - the US law suggests amounts ranging from $750 to $150,000, so you can see we are talking some heftypayments.• An additional award by the court from you to the person you stole from - this can be up to two times the licensefee you would have paid this person to do whatever you did for a period of three years• Confiscation of anything and everything pertaining to the case - this means any audio/video material, theequipment you used, your hard drive(s), etc.• Possible jail time depending on the court outcome• Expulsion from school or university, or loss of your job