Website with commercials (ads)

[damiandmz]

Hello Forum,

I wonder is it legal to agregate & present number of different commercials and overall marketing creatives (online display ads, newsletters, pop-ups, website elements etc.). I want to present them on my website
a) visible & useable to everyone (you can share, collect, resend via email and so on)
b) visible to everyone but with paid features of sharing, collecting, resending etc.
c) partly visible to everyone with paid version having access to full directory and all the functions.

Is presenting other authors and brands creatives to inspire other authors purposes with paid website features would be legal globally and locally (EU)?

Many thanks for your advices,
Damian

[AndyJ]

Hi Damian,

I'm assuming you are referring to artistic works, such as graphics, artwork and photographs, from printed adverts, and also video from commercials on TV etc. If that is correct, then you could only do this to a very limited extent without first obtaining permission, as these types of work are all fully covered by copyright, despite their apparent ephemeral nature.

If your purpose is to review or critique various adverts, say for the techniques they employ to grab attention or to persuade someone to buy the product, then you could use the exception in section 30(1) of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act, provided that you use no more of each advert than was necessary to make your point, and also credit the authors (eg the ad agency which produced the ad, or the company whose product was being advertised). However, getting permission beforehand would be much safer.

When it comes to applying the section 30 exception to video or filmed adverts, extra care needs to be taken over how much of the footage you re-use. It sounds as if you want to use the whole advert, and that will, in most cases, no longer be fair dealing, so permission is the route to go.

You also say you want to be able to allow others to use the resources you aggregate. The fair dealing exception doesn't allow you to sub-licence others to use the works, and so you would definitiely need permission for that feature. I am not aware of any blanket licence which you can obtain to do what you want to do, since every advert will be made up of a bundle of works such as text (literary work), photographs and graphics (artistic works), music (including recorded music used under licence) and performances by actors, all of which are administered by different collecting societies.

The fair dealing exception (section 30) is specific to UK copyright law, but the EU has a similar set of provisions, and in the USA their Fair Use doctrine is much broader and so would probably cover most of what you want to do.

I hope this clarifies things a bit

[damiandmz]

AndyJ,

It is a big pleasure to see your valuable reply, thank You!

I can possibly limit directory to static images / screenshots, without videos or radio voice adverts, if so, it sounds like the exception 30 could be solution if I'd add some kind of review to each "position".

I want to work mainly with creatives with unlimited (territory & time) rights of use, given by the creator to purchaser, publicly available for forever in most cases, like marketing/ecommerce email designs, mobile application designs & copywriting text etc.

Reason to exist of the database is to let creative people (doers of the marketing jobs) and purchasers (who order the jobs), communicate easier, show each other examples of what they like do achieve, but without the need to going throw dozens of google images / pinterest search results pages - my point here is that all the "works" are also publicly available, but access to them is just more difficult.

Does this change the light on this subject a bit?

[AndyJ]

Hi Damian,

The motives for the existence of your website don't really matter when it comes to assessing whether or not there is any infringement. Obviously if you wish to rely on the exception for the purpose of criticism and review, these should be genuine aims of the website. Just bringing stuff together in one place to make it easier for others to access the material doesn't really meet this criterion.

One way to avoid directly infringing other people's copyright is to provide links to sites where the material is legally being made available, and so not hosting any original material on your own site. This falls within the range of acts declared permissible by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in a trio of important cases known as Svensson, Bestwater and GS Media. (you don't need to read these commentaries on the various CJEU decisions). This avoids the need to obtain permission to copy each individual advert, but it may make your website messy to navigate, since visitors to your site will not be able to view, for example, two car adverts side by side. It will also be more difficult to present images on a particular theme in the same way that Flickr or Google image search would display them.