How can laws protect creative works?

If you write a song, create music or a fantastic invention, what can you do if someone copies your hard work?
Alma- Constance and Lucinda speak to His Honour Judge Richard Hacon, Presiding Judge of the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court, known as IPEC.

He tells us

·      That creative works, inventions and designs can be legal protected by intellectual property rights

·      There are different types of rights such as trademarks, design rights, patents, and copyrights

·      How important it is that people can make a living from their creative work 

·      The ways that these rights can be protected and where you can get help and advice, even if you don’t have much money

When Richard was 10 years old, he says he was a bit of a daydreamer, and his teachers often asked him to pay attention in class! He studied science at university, and he says he has found that useful in his intellectual property work.

Written, edited and produced by Lucinda Acland.

References and Resources

His Honour Judge Richard Hacon

IP Pro Bono

IPEC

Intellectual property and your work

Intellectual Property: A very short introduction

If you've got any questions, ideas about a topic or someone to interview, get in touch, we'd love to hear from you!! You can email us at kidslaw@spark21.org, contact us through the website: www.kidslaw.info or through social media: Facebook, X and Instagram @KidsLawInfo

Please subscribe, rate, and share the podcast with your friends.
See you soon in the next episode!

Transcript

Alma

Hello, I'm Alma Constance. 

Lucinda

And I'm Lucinda. And together in our Kids Law podcast, we're going to look at how law affects children as we grow up. So, what are we going to look at in this episode, Alma Constance? 

Alma

Well, I often see the word copyright appearing in books. music and videos on the internet and I want to know what this means and how it affects people. 

Lucinda

Many property rights relate to physical things like objects, buildings or land. There are also intellectual property rights or IP for short, which relate to creations of the human mind. For example, a new story, piece of music or artwork or a new business logo or invention.

In your example of a book, by using the word copyright, the author or publisher wants to let people know they cannot use the work without their permission. To find out more about IP rights, let's talk to his Honour Judge Richard Haken, presiding judge of the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court, known as IPEC for short.

Alma

Hello Richard, thank you so much for joining us on our Kidslaw podcast today. We are so happy to have you here. Could you start off by telling us what is meant by intellectual property?

Richard

Yes, and hello Alma Constance and Lucinda. It's a great pleasure to join your podcast. Well, as Lucinda rightly said, intellectual property is a, is property in an idea and different types of idea are protected by  different kinds of intellectual property rights.  Often referred to as IP rights for short.  So why do we have IP rights? Well, imagine you wrote a new song, a good song. without intellectual property rights, anyone could copy your song, and maybe make themselves famous and a lot of money, , and that wouldn't be fair to you because you're the creator of the song. So the law says your song is protected by copyright, which means that you can stop other people using it it's your song, or alternatively you can stop them using it without paying you. So when, let's say, Taylor Swift writes a new song, she owns the copyright in that song. Other people can record it if they want to, but, if they do, they have to pay her a royalty, a sum of money. And, it also means that you have to pay Taylor Swift if you download one of her tracks, because they're protected by copyright. And if we didn't have copyright, It would be much more difficult for people to make a living, out of creative activities like writing songs plays stories making films or taking photographs, that sort of thing.

And if people weren't able to protect their creative ideas, and couldn't ensure that they're paid for, then there wouldn't be very many people doing it, which would be a big loss to everybody. So, copyright in that way protects creative ideas. Or, to take another example, suppose you came up with a really good invention.

Let's say you invented a new kind of battery for mobile phones, really good battery, so that you only had to recharge your phone once every year, so much improved battery, fantastic invention, that kind of idea is not protected by copyright, it's an invention. So that kind of idea gets protected. By a patent, and patents allow inventors to make a living from their inventions. The other two main intellectual property rights are design rights and trademarks. Although there are some others, less frequently relied on. Design rights, they're a bit like copyright. Only they protect designs in commercial products like a chair or a car or parts of a car or something like that. Trademarks are a little bit different from other IP rights. Most IP rights Protect a creative sort of idea, like I mentioned, a song or a story or an invention. Trademarks protect an idea in a trading name or logo. When Steve Jobs set up the Apple company in California some years ago, he decided that he would sell his computers under the name Apple. And now, almost everybody, is very familiar with the name Apple for computers. And what would be unfair is, is if somebody else could start selling computers with Apple on them, because people would think, Oh, that computer is made by the Apple company that I'm familiar with, and that would be false. It would be unfair to the consumer, the purchaser, be unfair to Apple. And Apple has registered the name Apple as a trademark, and that allows them to stop other people using the name Apple on their computers. As a matter of fact, Apple has quite a lot of trademarks. They've got a trademark for the Apple logo. You know, the shape of an apple with a bite out of it. You can't use that without their permission. They've got a trademark for iPad and iPhone. All those names can only be used with Apple's permission. So very briefly, that's, those are different kinds of intellectual property rights. 

Alma

So how can I know we'll find out if something is protected by intellectual property rights? 

Richard

Well, sometimes it's quite easy, you, you may have seen, some products with copyright on them, for example, or the copyright sign, which is a C inside a circle. And if you see those, it means that someone is telling you that this thing is protected by copyright.

Or you might see something with the letters TM on them, and that's telling you that the name or the logo it's next to, is protected by a trademark. And sometimes it isn't obvious at all.  Although with certain IP rights, you can go to a register to look them up. I mentioned patents for inventions.

If you make an invention, what you have to do is you have to go to the intellectual property office, and they look at your invention and if they think it's new and if they think it's inventive then they will give you a patent and then it goes on a register. So, if somebody tells you, ah, well, my invention is protected by a patent, you can go to the Intellectual Property Office website, you have a look at the register, and you can see whether they really do have a patent.

And because patents only last 20 years, you can also see whether the patent has expired. Because if it's expired, if the 20 years are up, then anyone can use the invention for free. And you can also register trademarks and designs, although you get some sort of protection for those two, even if you don't register them.

With copyright, though, there's no register, so it's a bit harder. And the only way to be sure, really, whether something's protected by copyright may be to go to court to sort it out. But that would be quite expensive, and you'd only do that if you really had to know. 

Alma

So what can be done if someone uses your ideas or creation without your permission?

Richard

Well, if your idea is protected by an IP right, you can stop them. Actually, you have a choice. You can either stop them altogether, or you can say to them, I own an IP right in that idea, and either you pay me to use it, or, or I will stop you. The problem is that you have to go to court to make that happen. Well, if you're Taylor Swift or Apple, that's, that's not a difficulty because then you have plenty of money. You can afford to pay lawyers to do this and, you can afford to go to court. If you're a small company or you're an individual without a lot of money, you It can be a bit more difficult because it can be expensive. Not always. What you could do is you write to the person who's using your idea. You explain you've got this IP right. And sometimes people use ideas without realizing they're protected. They just didn't know. So if you write to them and say, look, this is the position, they might then just stop. 

But  if a letter doesn't work, unfortunately, intellectual property law is quite complicated and you may need some detailed advice if someone's using your idea and that may not be cheap to get.

Alma

Why do we have the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court? And can you give us some examples of cases that you hear? 

Richard

Yes, well, just as there are lawyers who specialise in intellectual property and give expert advice on it. So, there are, courts with judges who specialize in intellectual property.

And in fact, there are different kinds of courts for hearing different kinds of IP cases. And this is fairly new. At one time, if you wanted IP right, or defend yourself against somebody who was claiming that you're infringing their right. You always had to go to the same kind of court, with the same kind of procedure.

And the procedure was quite detailed. There was often a lot of evidence, long arguments. Long trials, and that's why it was expensive, and there was a problem because, what could happen is that, say, a big company could bully a small company, even if the small company had a good case and the big company had a really bad case.

And what would happen is the big company would say, well, all right,  we've got this dispute, we can go to court. , what you're going to do about it and the small company would know that if it went to court It was liable to take up so much of their time and cost so much money that it would be more than they could afford.

So the small company, even if they had a good case, would say, okay, we give in, and the big company, the bully company would get its way. And that was a real problem. So what happened was that some years ago, a court was set up with a simpler and faster procedure. And it became known as the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court, or IPEC for short.

And it hears cases about any kind of IP, right? Patents, copyright, trademark, anything. And in IPEC, The evidence is kept to a minimum. , the arguments are limited to the key arguments between the cases, the sort of peripheral issues are kept out. , trials are short and all this means that It is cheaper, actually much cheaper, to bring a case in IPEC than in the more detailed lists of the High Court.

And what that has meant is that smaller companies can take on bigger companies without being bullied. If they're threatened, they say, OK, we'll go to IPEC, and IPEC will sort it out. And even if we lose. this is not going to ruin us because the costs of IPEC are lower. I'm the main judge in IPEC, although I sit in those other courts, too.

And I can give you an example.  I had a case between Airbus, you know, the aircraft manufacturer, big, big, huge company. And a very small company that made a specialized kind of bolt that's used in the manufacture of aircraft, and this small company had a patent, and they said Airbus was infringing, and they brought a case in IPEC.

And Airbus. weren't happy about this at all. They said, no, no, no, no. This is going to be very complicated. It's going to involve lots of evidence. It's going to require all kinds of detailed investigation into the detailed list. It's called the patents court. and there was a hearing to decide whether it should stay in IPEC or move out the patents court. And had it gone to the patents court, this small company just could not afford it and would have given in. And I said, No, it's going to stay in IPEC. This can be focused down. And the trial was heard in IPEC. And it was fine. So this small company, much, much more than Airbus was able to fight its corner and protect its rights and have its case decided there. And actually, Some years after the main IPEC court was set up, they set up another court which has even simpler cases called the IPEC Small Claims Court. I don't sit in that court, other judges do that, but I speak to them quite often and know how it works. And in that court, it's mainly for individuals, not even for companies. And quite often they argue their case without lawyers, without any representation, and the procedure in that court is very informal.

It's not even in a courtroom actually, it's in a kind of regular room and the judge sits at the table and hears the arguments. And the trials are very short. And it doesn't cost very much at all. And it's been a big success that very small court with people like photographers, because what used to happen was, say, a big news agency would use a photographer's photograph, let's say of somebody in the royal family or a rock star or something, and they wouldn't pay.And again, they used to say, well, what are you going to do about it? We know you won't take us to court because you can't afford it. Well now they can afford it because  they go to this small claims IPEC court. And in fact apparently what's happened is that news agencies who used to do this kind of thing have now learned that they will be taken to IPEC small claims. And so they, now they say, okay, it's more trouble than it's worth. We'll, we'll pay you. And for a photographer, this makes a big difference to their livelihood, so it's been really good. And the IPEC court that I sit in, it's the same thing, not so much for individuals, but for small companies. It means people behave better in the commercial world because there's a realistic threat they will be taken to court. And that's not just fairer to everybody. It's good for,  a better working economy and, it's just better for everybody if that happens. 

Alma

So does this area of law affect young people or young creators? 

Richard

Well, IP law,  protects anybody who's creative, no matter what their age is. I would say for young people, probably the most important IP right is copyright.

I mentioned earlier, if you've written a song, that would be protected by copyright. Or if you wrote a story, a computer program, dance steps, a play, a film, or photographs. All those things, creative things, are protected by copyright. And, I mentioned earlier, you don't have to register your copyright. What that means is that if you create something, like a new story, or a computer program, or a film, or whatever it is, You automatically own the copyright. In the film or story or the painting, whatever it is, without having to do anything. So,  well, I'll give you an example. Suppose right now you were to make a sketch of something. It doesn't have to be a good sketch. It could be a bad sketch, anything. When it's done, you have copyright in that sketch. Automatically, which means that in principle, you can stop anybody else using or copying your sketch. Now, possibly, it wouldn't be a very valuable copyright.

Because maybe not many people would want to copy your sketch. But, if it was really good, or if it was like the song example I gave you earlier, a really good song that someone thinks is fantastic, I can make a lot of money with this song, then it becomes a valuable copyright. And then, you could,  enforce your copyright, and either stop them from using your creation, or require them to pay for it.

They'd have to pay your royalties. So, if you create, doesn't matter what age you are, if you create something, you can protect it. Although, perhaps I should add this,  you wouldn't be able to go to court,  by yourself if you were under 18. You'd have to have,  the assistance of a parent or a responsible adult. Butin principle, the copyright is yours. And you can enforce it, you can protect your creation. 

Alma

Could  someone share copyright or IP right? 

Lucinda

You mean jointly? , jointly. Created. 

Richard

Yes, it's a very good question. And quite often, of course, that happens. And when that happens, then the normal rule is they both jointly own the copyright. So, you can both, either of you actually, can protect the copyright by stopping someone else from using it.

But, if there were going to be royalties payable, they'd be divided up between the two people or three people, whatever it is. Sometimes, with a song, it's slightly different often, because One person does the lyrics, and one person does the music. And then what happens is there are two separate copyright works. There's the copyright in the words, in the lyrics, and there's the copyright in the music. So, if someone just used the music, then only the person who created the music would have the relevant copyright. And if someone just used the words, it would work the other way around. But, I mean, you'll know lots of examples where, a team of two have created the music. In that instance there are two copyrights because there are two different works. But otherwise, it's, it's jointly owned. 

Lucinda

If somebody created something, posted it on social media, you mentioned a song or a dance step and then they suddenly saw it being replicated, I'm thinking those are the sorts of things that a young person might particularly get involved in. Is it essentially whether that attracts any money that would be something that they could protect

Richard

well, no, it's a good point. I mean, in principle, it doesn't matter whether 

it generates money or doesn't. If you do own the copyright, someone has copied your creation, creative idea, then you can stop them. The difference money makes is that if there's no real money in it, then you won't get much by way of damages, but you would, if you're correct, get a court order, an injunction stopping the person who's using it. from doing that. The difficulty with online infringements is often that it's difficult to pin down who they are. So your big problem is explaining to the court who the order should be against. And unless you can do that, this is problematic. There are special court orders which require the host of the server, to take down a website. So you could get them to do that. But that is quite a complicated procedure. So, there are ways of doing this kind of thing. But, online infringements are quite often difficult to stop, for the reasons I've just mentioned. 

Lucinda

Thank you.  

Alma

What if it goes viral, you know, how yeah. Yeah. 

Richard

I mean if it really went viral and You were able to persuade a court that This really was causing you a lot of harm Then you could get a website blocking or take down the website You could get that,  even if you couldn't, or especially if actually, you couldn't identify who was infringing your right because it was just difficult to, to find out.

You would just say, well, look, we don't know who this is. They're sending it to everybody. It's costing me a lot. Because this is my work and it's a valuable work. So, , since we can't identify who it is, we want the website taken down. Yeah. Even that can be problematic though, because what I've found is, you issue an order like that, and it just pops up on another website.

Alma

So how can  people  get help and advice about protecting their intellectual property rights?

Richard

 In an ideal world, you would get a specialist lawyer to help you, but, getting specialist advice can be expensive, but there are ways of getting free  advice and, one of those is by an organization called IP Pro Bono, which I helped to set up, and it was precisely to help people who can't afford expensive lawyers, but they need help with advice on protecting their IP rights, for example. And if you Google IP Pro Bono, that's I P P R O Bono. B O N O. That will take you to the IP Pro Bono website, and that website gives you clear instructions as to what you need to do to get advice from a specialist IP lawyer.

Basically, you have to give details of why you need advice, , details of,  how this has come about and a bit about yourself. And then, you press send and then, they, they get back to you. And if you, genuinely can't afford., to pay for advice, and you genuinely have a good reason to need advice. They will put you in touch with a specialist IP lawyer, who are often quite young, but they, they, they are specialists, they know their stuff, and that lawyer will advise you for free, and tell you what you need to do to protect your IP work. And in some cases. If you really need it, they will help you draft court documents, tell you what you need to do to go to court and if you can't afford to be represented, for example, they may well say, well, look, there's this. IPEC Small Claims Court where it's very simple and straightforward. You could do that yourself. So you can get advice for free.  You have to satisfy them that you, genuinely need it and you've got a case that's worth pursuing, but it is available. 

Ama

Why did you decide to work in this specific area of law?

Richard

Well, like a lot of IP lawyers, , I have a science degree and when I decided I didn't want to be a professional scientist and studied law instead, intellectual property law seemed probably a good way to go because a science background is quite useful when you're doing patent cases.

Patent cases often involve quite complex scientific concepts. And if you've got a bit of background in science, it just makes it, it's not essential, but it makes it easier to do, to understand and explain that kind of case. So, that's the direction I went in. And actually, I'm very glad I did. I would say it's one of the most interesting areas of law. 

Ama

I have a question I ask all of our guests. What were you like at 10 and what did you imagine you'd go on to be as an adult?

Richard

Time plays real tricks and I, I find it really difficult to really know what I was like,  when I was, how old, 10? One thing I do remember though, When I was that age, teachers often used to say to me at school, Richard, pay attention. And I think I was the kind of kid whose mind easily wandered off if I wasn't really interested in what was being taught.

I would look out the window or think about something else. Because I was frequently told that, you pay attention. and so, I think I was that kind of kid. you have any ideas about what you wanted to be when you were little? Well, no, the one thing I can say for sure is certainly when I was 10, I had no idea what I wanted to do as an adult.

I mean, it was the sort of question that adults, At the time, aunts and uncles and that sort of person would tend to ask you, you know, what do you want to be when you grow up? And I can remember clearly, I hadn't a clue. Sometimes I used to make things up  I mean, I remember I had friends, there was one friend I remember wanted to be a scientist. I remember thinking, yes, that sounded quite cool and interesting. I had a friend who wants to be a in the army, I think. And that sounded like hard work to me. But I can remember thinking they really seem to know what they want to do and , I really didn't  form a real view until quite some time later. So I just didn't know.  

Alma

Well, thank you so much for telling us about intellectual property and the work of ipec. Do you have any final advice for children who want to know more about this topic? 

Richard

A good way to find out, probably the best way to find out is to get a simple guide to intellectual property law. they exist, they are, fairly small paperbacks. You can buy or you could, download them and they are simple guides. to how IP law works. And they explain in very simple terms, all the basic concepts and the different types of IP law and the essentials of how you can protect your ideas.

Well, thank you so much.  You're extremely welcome. I'm very happy to be in your podcast. I think it's an extremely good idea. Thank you I hope that was a little bit helpful. Thank you so much. Great pleasure. Bye bye.

Lucinda

Well, Alma, what do you think about what Richard told us? 

Alma

Well, IP rights stop others from using creations without paying the creative royalties and so enables people to make a living out of creative works. There are a few different types of rights, copyrights, which protects artistic works, trademarks that protect trading names or logos, design rights that protect commercial designs, and patents protecting inventions.

I thought it was very interesting to hear that small companies or individuals can be pressured by larger organizations, and this is why the IPEC and IPEC County Courts are so important. The procedure is simplified and aims to provide cost effective, speedy solution. I also thought it was good that IP rights can be shared by more than one person, and so royalties are divided between them. Richard has a science degree, which is good in IP law 

Lucinda

The case that Richard mentioned about photographers being able to stop large news organizations using their photos without paying is a good example. The use of advice from the IP pro bono organizations or the IPEC small claims court. is a really good example of giving people access to justice so that they can make a living from their creative endeavors.

In our podcast, we've been exploring how laws work and affect young people. All of these things help children understand their rights and responsibilities so that they can make informed decisions, not only about their lives, but also about voting for MPs who make the laws and understanding how the legal justice system works. It's also important that children should be kept safe and adults must care for them. Remember, if you have any worries, talk to an adult you trust and tell them how you feel. This includes your teachers at school who are there to look after you too, so tell them that you need to talk to them. You can find more information on kidslaw. info website. 

Alma

Keep your questions coming in. Please subscribe, rate, and share the podcast with your friends. See you soon in the next episode.  

Bye