Fair dealing friends

Sue Gilchrist, Dan Posker and Steve Wong of Freehills examine the copyright issues businesses face when using social media sites in the light of Australia’s fair dealing defence

Increasingly, businesses are utilising popular social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to pursue marketing opportunities. In doing so, they are engaging with consumers who are no longer passive viewers of content, but who instead operate in an environment in which they are empowered and, indeed, encouraged to create and/or share content including text, photographs and video which may be protected by copyright. 1