HUMA 3250 - Independent Cinema in Contemporary China: Intellectual Property - Yours & Others

All people are both information creators and users. Here you will learn about

• Your rights as an information creator (how you want your intellectual property used)
• Your responsibilities as a user of other people's information (how you should use others' intellectual property)

What is "Information" ?

"Generally, information is whatever is capable of causing a human mind to change its opinion about the current state of the real world.."¹

Thus, a poem, a painting, a song, or a film can also be considered, information.

1. "information." A Dictionary of Computer Science. Eds. Butterfield, Andrew, and Gerard Ekembe Ngondi. : Oxford University Press, 2016. Oxford Reference. 2016. Date Accessed 17 Feb. 2017 <http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199688975.001.0001/acref-9780199688975-e-2557>.

In general, copyright is the right given to the owner of an original work, it is an automatic right for the creator (author). Often times, the author then sells it on, for example a composer to a recording company like Sony.

Source: Intellectual Property Department (https://www.ipd.gov.hk/en/copyright/copyright-laws/index.html)

Copyright law in HK - Copyright Ordinance (Cap. 528)

Fair Dealing - extremely limited use

Using copyrighted works as part of your class assignment is covered under the  "Fair Dealing for the purposes of giving or receiving instruction" in section 41-A of the Hong Kong Kong copyright ordinance. You must be very careful about:

• The purpose and character of the dealing (Non-profit making?)
• The nature of the work
• The amount and substantiality of the portion dealt with in relation to the work as a whole (e.g. Are you using the most most important portion of the work?)
• The effect of the dealing upon the potential market for a value of the work

Source: Intellectual Property Department (https://www.ipd.gov.hk/filemanager/ipd/common/copyright/cpr_ed_e.pdf)

Copyright in Education - FAQ (Chinese version only, by Education Bureau, last updated July 2023)

What can be used for free (no payment)

• Your own original material
• The material belongs to public domain, which is made free for everyone use
• You have the permission of the copyright owner
  • Request permission:
    • If you wish to use content created by another person and reuse it in your film, you have to obtain permission from the copyright owner.
    • A consent by email is generally accepted, keep the record of the permission for your work with re-used content.

Professor Alice Lee of HKU's Law School has created and posted short & clear videos about Copyright, Called The Copyright Classroom In particular, look at:

• The Basics
• Learning
• Art
• News Reporting
• Performance

If you are planing to share your work with the public on the Internet, you may consider to choose a Creative Commons License to protect your creative work.

For more information: https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/

There are six types of Creative Commons License:

For more information: https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/cclicenses/