All Entries Tagged With: "Talk Radio"

A Lesson from the NJ101.5 Case – Copyright Infringement

By Matthew B. Harrison
Senior Partner, Harrison Strategies

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. –– When choosing to use non-original materials as a portion of programming, it is important to make sure that such usage falls squarely within the accepted affirmative defense of fair use.

A New Jersey federal appeals court recently reinstated a copyright and defamation lawsuit against New Jersey talk radio station, New Jersey 101.5 (WKXW-FM) and its former PM drive team “Carton & Rossi.” Craig Carton currently co-hosts the WFAN, New York morning drive show “Boomer & Carton.” Ray Rossi hosts an evening show on New Jersey 101.5.

The case was simple. New Jersey Monthly (NJM) hired a photographer to take a photo of Carton & Rossi to accompany an article to be published. An unknown employee of WKXW-FM then scanned in the image from NJM and posted it to the WKXW-FM website, among others. The image, as scanned and posted, cut off reference to NJM’s story title, and eliminated the gutter credit identifying the photographer. The station invited visitors to alter the image and submit resulting versions. In all, the station posted 26 of these submissions. At no time did the station or the hosts ask the photographer for permission, and as a result –– the photographer sued.

Afterthoughts on using and protecting intellectual property

By Matthew B. Harrison, esq.
PhotosAndTheLaw.com

Last month, this column detailed the four factors of the fair use defense to copyright infringement. The prior column addressed how to use the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in order to protect your audio (and video) from misuse. Both of these articles generated enough reader feedback and follow up questions, that it seemed like a good idea to provide a summary article with some additional clarifications.

The first two, and the most straightforward, of four factors of a fair use defense to copyright infringement are:

· The nature of the copyrighted work; and
· The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole;

and the two that led to the most follow up are:

· The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; and
· The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.