I work at a University Library in Canada, we've recently produced a promotional video for a book scanner. In the video, we demonstrate the use of the book scanner using a random book off the shelf, but the focus is always on the scanner, never on the pages of the book (though there are some shots where you can see pictures, and at least one where you can read a title on the page). One of the Librarians is under the impression that we need to cite the book and give attribution to the author. Originally we thought we could probably pass this off as incidental use, but according to the Librarian it's not, because we deliberately used that book as a prop. I've never heard of attribution being given to authors of books used as props, is this really necessary?
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@Wrzlprmft - As jakebeal notes in his answer the author made no contribution to the video, I could have just as easily used Curious George for my choice of book, the author had no bearing whatsoever on our book selection.– ShemSegerCommented Jan 28, 2015 at 21:42
3 Answers
So I actually emailed my question to Michael Geist, who is a professor of law and happens to be one of the foremost experts in Canadian copyright... in the whole world. He was gracious enough to reply:
"No. That sounds de minimis to me and does not require permission or attribution."
So the answer is no, they don't need attribution.
I cannot imagine it being necessary or even appropriate to cite the book. Citation is used to acknowledge the intellectual contribution of an author.
No aspect of that intellectual contribution was implicated in any way in your choice of that book over any other book in the library: that book could have been replaced with literally any other book, with not the slightest difference in the intellectual content of your video.
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Right!? Those are my thoughts exactly, but unfortunately for me I'm dealing with a Librarian so I'm going to have to probably prove that to her citing Canadian copyright law. Commented Jan 28, 2015 at 21:36
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@ShemSeger I doubt you'll find any of us random strangers on the internet who can speak with legal authority to your colleague. Maybe you need to actually consult a lawyer? The university should have some on staff...– jakebealCommented Jan 28, 2015 at 21:48
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The sad thing is you're probably right about the lawyer. From what I'm told, pretty much everything official about fairdealing comes from court cases right now... Commented Jan 28, 2015 at 22:34
I am not a lawyer and not familiar with Canadian copyright law, but here are some thoughts that should apply to any reasonable copyright law, might be convincing even without citing a law or that might help you on your research:
Just attributing the author should not pose any legal benefit unless for works is published under some licence (such as some Creative Commons licences) that especially requires it. So, if you actually have a copyright issue here, attributing won’t help unless the book is under such a licence.
Copyright protects creators (and copyright holders in general) only from certain things, most importantly the unwanted reproduction of their intellectual content. I find it questionable that what you did falls in any way under something that copyright law protects anybody from. For more detail, have a look at the law itself (in particular here and here).
What you did might fall under fair dealing. If I understood it correctly, you are not showing more of the book than, e.g., is permittable for the purpose of review. However, the situation is a little bit different as you are not reviewing the book.
If I understood it correctly, there is little difference between what you did and, e.g., any documentary where somebody is interviewed in an office surrounded by hundreds of books, maybe some of them lieing plainly on the table, so you can see the cover. If legal issues were involved in making such films, people would be interviewed in plain boring rooms much more often.
You are probably seeing more intellectual content of whoever designed the cover of the book and made those images than the author of the book (though this might be the author). So why attribute the author?
Finally, from the ethical point of view, I do not see any problem: The author of the book did not intelectually contribute to your video in any way. The author is not harmed by what you are doing. If at all, there is a slight benefit as you are providing free advertisement.
