What are the main copyright issues for print media?

The main copyright issues that print media suffers, come from professors and students who constantly recreate material. Publishers are becoming increasingly concerned about how students and professors photocopy material that has been copyrighted by publishers. They are also concerned about the many informal newsletters, websites, and electronic publications that ‘borrow’ or sample images, photos, sections of text and headlines from newspapers, magazines and books. Because of this increase in electronic distribution, new intellectual property rules have been developed to ensure that each author or photographer gets royalties. Individual authors and photographers have rights to their intellectual property during their lifetime and their heirs have rights for 70 years after the author’s or photographer’s death.

One of the basic precepts of copyright law is fair use, therefore making single copies for personal use, citing a short passage in scholarly works and making multiple copies for classroom use are and should be permitted.