Every image, track, font and clip you did not make yourself belongs to somebody. Copyright is the set of rules deciding what you may do with it, and it is not a technicality — a finished video can be blocked, taken down, or made unpublishable by one unlicensed song. The good news is that the working rules are short, and once you know them the decision at the moment you drag an asset onto a timeline takes about ten seconds.
Copyright starts automatically
- It exists the moment the work is fixed. As soon as a photo is taken or a track is recorded, it is protected. There is nothing to apply for, no fee, and no form — in Canada, registration is optional and only helps you prove ownership in a dispute.
- The © symbol is not required. A work with no symbol, no credit line and no visible owner is still fully protected. 'I found it on the internet with no name on it' is not a licence.
- The term runs from the creator's death, not from publication. In Canada the term was the life of the author plus 50 years for decades, and was extended to life plus 70 years at the end of 2022 to match trading partners. Works that had already fallen into the public domain under the old 50-year term stayed there.
- Copyright covers expression, not ideas. Nobody owns the idea of a skateboarding video or a chemistry explainer. What is owned is one particular execution of it — this footage, this script, this arrangement.
- Moral rights are separate and, in Canada, cannot be sold. A creator keeps the right to be associated with the work and to object to changes that damage their reputation, even after the economic rights are transferred.
- The creator is usually the first owner, with an important exception: work made by an employee in the course of their job generally belongs to the employer. A freelancer keeps ownership unless the contract says otherwise, which is why contracts say otherwise.
No symbol, no credit, no registration needed
The single most common misconception is that a work is free to use if it carries no copyright notice, has no visible author, or came up in an image search. Protection is automatic and silent. Assume every asset is owned until you find a licence saying otherwise, and treat 'I could not find the owner' as a reason not to use it rather than a permission to.
Fair dealing, not fair use
AFair dealing (Canada)
- A closed list of allowable purposes: research, private study, education, parody, satire, criticism, review and news reporting
- If your use does not fit one of those purposes, the exception does not apply at all
- Criticism, review and news reporting also require you to name the source and the author
- Once the purpose fits, courts weigh fairness: how much you used, why, whether an alternative existed, and the effect on the market for the original
- Using a short clip to critique a film in a review can qualify
BFair use (United States)
- No fixed list of purposes — any use can be argued
- Judged on four open factors: purpose and character, nature of the work, amount used, and effect on the market
- Transformative use is weighted heavily, which is why American commentary channels lean on it
- Attribution is not a legal requirement of the test, though it helps
- This is US law and does not apply in Canada, whatever a video you watched says
Fair dealing is a defence, not a free pass
Three habits get students in trouble. First, assuming that 'it is for a school project' automatically covers any use — education is an allowable purpose, but the use still has to be fair in amount and effect. Second, believing myths like a seven-second rule or that crediting the artist makes any use legal; neither exists. Third, copying the American term. Canada has fair dealing with a closed list of purposes, and a use that would be fair use in the United States can simply fail here because it does not fit one of those purposes.
Licences: from most permissive to least
| Licence | What you must do | What you may not do | Can you remix it? |
|---|---|---|---|
| CC0 | Nothing. The creator has waived their rights | Nothing is forbidden | Yes, freely |
| CC BY | Credit the creator | Pass it off as your own | Yes |
| CC BY-SA | Credit, and release your version under the same licence | Lock your remix behind a stricter licence | Yes, but your work is bound by the same terms |
| CC BY-NC | Credit, and keep the use non-commercial | Use it in anything that makes money, including ad-supported content | Yes, non-commercially |
| CC BY-ND | Credit, and distribute the work unchanged | Crop, recolour, edit, or use it as part of a remix | No |
| All rights reserved | Get written permission or buy a licence | Anything not covered by that permission or by fair dealing | Only with permission |
- Public domain means the term has expired or the creator formally dedicated the work. It is genuinely free to use, but check carefully: a new photograph of a public-domain painting, a modern performance of an old piece of music, or a fresh edition of an old text can each carry their own new copyright.
- Royalty-free means you pay once — or nothing — and then use the asset repeatedly without paying per use. It does not mean free of charge and it does not mean unrestricted; the licence still sets limits on things like broadcast, resale and use in a logo.
- Rights-managed means the licence is written for one specific use: this medium, this territory, this size, this length of time. The price scales with those terms, and going beyond any of them needs a new licence.
- Read the licence before the download, not after the edit. The usual traps are 'personal use only', 'no commercial use', 'editorial use only' on stock photos of real people and places, and fonts that are free for personal projects but licensed for anything published.
- Music is usually two copyrights. The composition and the specific recording are licensed separately, which is why 'I bought the song' does not entitle you to put it under your video.
- Platform detection is automatic and blunt. Content ID systems match audio and video against a database and will mute, block or demonetize a video regardless of whether you believe your use was fair.
Attribution done properly: title, author, source, licence
A complete credit names four things — the title of the work, the creator, a link to where you found it, and the licence it was released under. 'Sunrise Over Bowness by J. Tam, from Openphoto, licensed CC BY 4.0' does the job. 'Photo from Google' does not, because it names neither the creator nor the terms, and Google is a search engine rather than a source.
Consent: releases and privacy
- A model release is written permission from an identifiable person to use their image. For anyone under 18, a parent or guardian signs. Without it, published footage of a recognizable person can have to come down.
- A property release covers recognizable private property, distinctive buildings, and artwork visible in a shot. Filming on private premises also needs permission from whoever controls the location.
- Public space is not blanket permission. You can generally photograph what is visible from a public place, but the moment the work is used commercially, or the subject is identifiable and the context is sensitive, a release is what protects you.
- Consent must be informed. The person needs to know where the work will appear and for how long. Filming someone for a class exercise and then posting it publicly is a different use from the one they agreed to.
- Privacy applies to data as well as faces. Do not publish addresses, schedules, student numbers or timetables that appear in the background of a shot — blur them or reshoot.
- Consent can be withdrawn, and the professional response is to take the material down rather than to argue about the paperwork.
Plagiarism, inspiration and AI
- Plagiarism is passing off someone's work or ideas as your own, and it is separate from copyright. You can plagiarize a public-domain work — perfectly legal, still dishonest — and you can infringe copyright while crediting the author scrupulously.
- Inspiration takes the technique; copying takes the execution. Learning a lighting setup, a pacing pattern or a colour strategy from a piece you admire is how everyone learns. Reproducing its exact layout, its shot list or its script is copying, however many small details you change.
- The honest test: could you explain to the original creator what you took and why, and would they recognize it as learning rather than lifting?
- AI-generated assets raise three separate questions. What the model was trained on and whether those creators consented; whether the output can be owned at all, since copyright generally requires a human author; and what the generator's own terms of service allow you to do with the result.
- Disclose AI use. Say what was generated and what you made — in the credits, the caption, or the project documentation. Passing off a generated image as a photograph you took is a misrepresentation whatever the copyright status turns out to be.
- Never generate a real person's likeness or voice without consent. A convincing fake of someone saying something they never said is a harm to that person regardless of how the file was produced, and several jurisdictions now legislate specifically against it.