Do you have a copyright question and want free expert advice?

This Tuesday, our topic for #folksyhour is copyright and intellectual property.

We’ve enlisted the help of three guest experts to answer your questions on copyright, trademarks and design rights. So if you have any questions, either specific to you or more general worries, post them here so we can put them to the panel in advance.

What do you really want to know? This could be what exactly is covered by copyright? Is your work automatically protected? Or what should you do if you think someone (either an organisation or another maker) has copied your work? Are you allowed to use song lyrics in your work? Can your work reference films, artists or cartoon characters? Whatever you’d like to know, the experts are here to help.

On our expert panel are:

Niall Head-Rapson, Director of McDaniel & Co, a niche Intellectual Property practice based in Jesmond, Newcastle upon Tyne, specialising in all facets of intellectual property law, from litigation to trade mark and copyright law. Niallwill be tweeting from @IP_DOCTOR

Silvia Baumgart from Own-it, which offers free information and advice on copyright, design rights, trade marks, confidentiality and licensing for the creative sector. Silvia will be tweeting from @Ownit.

Louise Verity, the designer behind Bookishly, who has first-hand experience of copyright issues, which she wrote about for the Folksy blog. Louise will be tweeting from @BookishlyUK

If you have any questions you’d like to ask our experts, please email them to us at community@folksy.co.uk or add them to this thread (preferably in 140 characters or less!)

And join in tomorrow night from 8-9pm on the #folksyhour hashtag!

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Excellent, this should be a good one.

Will try to be there!

hi - i was wondering what the copyright situation is with drawing characters from (non-animated) films for your work? eg an actor playing a role in film. Or quotes from films.
thanks.

I repurpose old books & use the penguin logo in hair pins. Each item contains an actual piece of a purchased book rather than a copy of the image, is this a potential copyright issue?

Can someone make something out of Disney and Marvel fabric and sell it?

Can those of us who missed folksyhour have a summary of the conclusions please Camilla @folksycontent1? Should we just avoid using anything featured in films/ books/ music and refrain from being inspired by them as well.

Think there was mention of a summary going up on the blog in future. Was a very interesting #folksyhour and things were certainly a minefield. Think the best piece of advice though was to ask the copyright holder if you can use their intellectual property - whilst some will refuse point blank, others may be OK with it.

There was so much information on #folksyhour last night @SashaGarrett - enough to make heads spin. As @BigBirdLittleBird says, I’m going to write a follow-up post soon but in the meantime here’s what happened in a semi-sorted list https://storify.com/folksy/folksyhour-copyright

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