Copyright User

Copyrightuser.org is an online resource aimed at making UK copyright law accessible to creators and members of the public. The resources are meant for everyone who uses copyright: musicians, filmmakers, performers, writers, visual artists and interactive developers, among others.

The goal is to inform creators about how to protect their work, how to license and exploit it, and how to legally re-use the work of others.

The site uses user-friendly texts produced by leading academics, as well as compelling illustrations, motion graphics videos and video interviews with creators to provide the often complex information in a balanced and accessible way.

We aim to provide answers to the most pressing concerns that creators have about copyright. To find out what was most confusing to users, we took two approaches. First, we analysed the 200 most frequently asked questions about copyright posted online by creators and consumers, and we filtered those down to the most important 20 which you can find answered in the ‘FAQs’ section. Second, we spoke to creators themselves. For each of the main artistic mediums we produced a video which contains interviews with creators about their artistic process, thoughts and questions about copyright.

The Copyright User project was initially funded by Bournemouth University’s Fusion Investment Fund in August 2012 and extended with RCUK funding provided by CREATe, University of Glasgow in 2013.
Currently the project is jointly undertaken by CIPPM, the Centre for Intellectual Property Policy & Management (Bournemouth University), and CREATe, the RCUK Centre for Copyright and New Business Models in the Creative Economy (University of Glasgow), in collaboration with CEMP, the Centre for Excellence in Media Practice (Bournemouth University).