Is this copyright infringement?

[sv007]

I wanted to know about the legality of nature of business of a B2B company that tracks advertisements of companies across industries. The mediums tracked are TV, radio, and newspapers. The procedure includes recording TV and radio advertisements that are aired. With regards to newspaper, ads are screenshoted from free epapers or scanned from hard copies of newspapers.

However I would like to know if recording ads that are already on air or released in the press, making reports based on them and providing these analysis as paid services for competitor campaign tracking and keeping track of whether the ads paid for were aired completely comes under copyright infringements?

Can a brand sue or send notice to such a company for tracking their campaigns? What are the legal implications involved in running such a business?

As an example, iSpot.tv is one such company that records and displays commercials on its website. What are the legal implications of this if any?

Thanks

 

[FlyingRon]

Just because the publication is free or recovered without charge on the internet or TV doesn't make it public domain.

This is a sort of a grey area. Newspapers are battling copyright with "clipping services" which are similar to what you are proposing. Essentially, I pay a company to scan the newspapers and send me any articles that mention my company (not advertising, but editorial content primarily). The papers conntend this is illegal copying. Off course the days of these sort of companies are sort of obviated by the fact that google and a few other online providers let you scan papers for keywords pretty much automatically.

There are companies that are doing sort of what you are doing now without the copyright infringement as they just reference where things appear without actually taking snapshots. For instance, there are companies that crawl over TV coverage of sporting events and note when certain company/product logos get screen time.

 

[FlyingRon]

Just because the publication is free or recovered without charge on the internet or TV doesn't make it public domain.

This is a sort of a grey area. Newspapers are battling copyright with "clipping services" which are similar to what you are proposing. Essentially, I pay a company to scan the newspapers and send me any articles that mention my company (not advertising, but editorial content primarily). The papers conntend this is illegal copying. Off course the days of these sort of companies are sort of obviated by the fact that google and a few other online providers let you scan papers for keywords pretty much automatically.

There are companies that are doing sort of what you are doing now without the copyright infringement as they just reference where things appear without actually taking snapshots. For instance, there are companies that crawl over TV coverage of sporting events and note when certain company/product logos get screen time.

The fact that an ad ran, isn't copyrightable. The ad and the surrounding paper is.

For example... here's a picture of the CocaCola ad from page 3 of the Tuesday's Daily Bugle may get you in trouble.

CocaCola had a quarter page RefresinglyBetter:Beyonce ad on page 3 of Tuesday's Daily Bugle is OK.

 

[quincy]

I wanted to know about the legality of nature of business of a B2B company that tracks advertisements of companies across industries. The mediums tracked are TV, radio, and newspapers. The procedure includes recording TV and radio advertisements that are aired. With regards to newspaper, ads are screenshoted from free epapers or scanned from hard copies of newspapers.

However I would like to know if recording ads that are already on air or released in the press, making reports based on them and providing these analysis as paid services for competitor campaign tracking and keeping track of whether the ads paid for were aired completely comes under copyright infringements?

Can a brand sue or send notice to such a company for tracking their campaigns? What are the legal implications involved in running such a business?

As an example, iSpot.tv is one such company that records and displays commercials on its website. What are the legal implications of this if any?

Thanks

What is the name of your state or, if not in the US, what is the name of your country?

Under the US Copyright Act, some uses of copyrighted material can be considered a "fair use" of the material. One such fair use is when the copyrighted material is used in connection with criticism of or comment on the work, or when the use is for news reporting purposes, or when the use is for teaching purposes, or when the work is used as part of scholarship or research.

Most uses of another's copyrighted material, however, will require permission from the copyright holder, generally granted by the copyright holder in the form of a license. The rights granted often have time and purpose limits and are non-exclusive rights - meaning the copyright holder retains all of the rights to the work and is only allowing use without giving up any ownership in the work.

Trademarks are also implicated in the publishing of copyrighted advertisements. Any advertisements that contain the trademarks of a company can potentially be published for the above-allowed copyright exceptions if the way the trademarks are presented do not imply the publisher has any affiliation (sponsorship, endorsement) with the company in a way that confuses consumers as to the origin of the publication. Trademarks can be used in a descriptive way.

When in doubt as to whether a use of another's copyrighted work or trademark infringes on intellectual property rights, the holder of the rights should be contacted and/or the specific proposed use should be personally reviewed by an IP attorney.