Re: &quot;Our mass infringement&quot;, is LearnHub doing anything illegal? On meta ELU, there's a question: Mass infringement of our copyright, which goes on about how some SE sites are being "scraped"; cut and pasted with no attribution, to sites such as LearnHub.org. From what I gather, their site hurriedly put up: Question is already asked and answered on Stackexchange.com and shared under Creative Commons - Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic Is that enough to fulfill their legal obligation? Was it ever required, or is LearnHub just crossing their T's and dotting their I's? I must admit, my eyes glazed over reading this and this, my take-away being that it's not even required here legally, that's just our site rules.
Go to the Source If you follow the Legal link at the bottom of the page and read the terms of service, among other things, it says (my emphasis): 1. Access to the Services Subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement, Stack Exchange may offer to provide the Services, as described more fully on the Network, and which are selected by Subscriber, solely for Subscriber’s own use, and not for the use or benefit of any third party. ... Subscriber certifies to Stack Exchange that Subscriber is an individual (i.e., not a corporate entity) at least 13 years of age. ... 2. Network Content ... The Network is protected by copyright as a collective work and/or compilation, pursuant to U.S. copyright laws, international conventions, and other copyright laws. Other than as expressly set forth in this Agreement, Subscriber may not copy, modify, publish, transmit, upload, participate in the transfer or sale of, reproduce (except as provided in this Section), create derivative works based on, distribute, perform, display, or in any way exploit, any of the Content, software, materials, or Services in whole or in part. Subscriber may download or copy the Content, and other items displayed on the Network for download, for personal use, provided that Subscriber maintains all copyright and other notices contained in such Content. From time to time, Stack Exchange may make available compilations of all the Subscriber Content on the Network (the “Creative Commons Data Dump”). The Creative Commons Data Dump is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike license. By downloading The Creative Commons Data Dump, You agree to be bound by the terms of that license. Any other downloading, copying, or storing any Content for other than personal, noncommercial use is expressly prohibited without prior written permission from Stack Exchange, or from the copyright holder identified in such Content's copyright notice. In the event You download software from the Network, the software, including any files, images incorporated in or generated by the software, and the data accompanying the software (collectively, the “Software”) is licensed to You by Stack Exchange or third party licensors for Your personal, noncommercial use, and no title to the Software shall be transferred to You. Stack Exchange or third party licensors retain full and complete title to the Software and all intellectual property rights therein. 3. Subscriber Content You agree that all Subscriber Content that You contribute to the Network is perpetually and irrevocably licensed to Stack Exchange under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike license. You grant Stack Exchange the perpetual and irrevocable right and license to use, copy, cache, publish, display, distribute, modify, create derivative works and store such Subscriber Content and to allow others to do so in any medium now known or hereinafter developed (“Content License”) in order to provide the Services, even if such Subscriber Content has been contributed and subsequently removed by You. ... Consequences Under Clause 1 Subscribers to Stack Exchange must be individuals (natural persons in legalese). The proprietor of LearnHub.org are unlikely to be an individual and are therefore not a Subscriber under the terms of use. Under Clause 2, everything on Stack Exchange is copyright and some things are trade marked as well. The copyright for posts vests in the Subscriber and is licenced to SE (CC BY-SA 3.0) or vests in SE directly as the creator. Clause 8.1a. of CC BY-SA 3.0 requires SE to grant a licence to any recipient of a distribution (e.g. on a web site) on the same terms. For this reason the limitations on the copyright in Clause 2 can only apply to those items where copyright vests in SE directly; not to the content of the Subscriber posts. Assuming that it is only Subscriber posts that they are reproducing then they either need to: Comply with CC BY-SA 3.0 and attribute the work as required by that licence; what they have put up does not on the face of it do that because: They are referring to an earlier version of the licence Attribution under 3.0 is detailed in Clause 4.c. and this doesn't meet the criteria. Have been licenced by the original copyright holder; which seems unlikely. Meet the fair use criteria; attribution would not be required but would certainly be polite. Fair use turns on the specific facts of the case - on the face of it they could put forward a credible argument that their use is fair use. Complications Jurisdiction matters here; copyright laws are not uniform across the world. For example, Australian copyright has a much more limited "fair use" concept than the US and also creates a "moral copyright" of the author that exists independently of the copyright of the owner. For signatories to the Berne Convention; the country of origin for simultaneously published works (which online posting is) and therefore the law applying is the country that gives the shortest term of protection. The convention is annoyingly silent of what that means if there is more than one qualifying "Country of Origin"; this leaves scope for litigants to try to apply the most favourable domestic law that could be applicable and the case could be brought in any of several jurisdictions. This is the stuff that makes lawyers rich!
Yes, assuming the material was given the standard license. You would be creating a derivative work, and only the copyright owner has the right to authorize creation of a derivative work. See the copyright FAQ for general information. The owner can file a DMCA takedown notice with YouTube and they will by policy notify you of the infringement claim and unless you file a counter-notice (you legally couldn't given the facts you're asserting), they will take it down. The owner can also sue you.
I've found Google's filtering based on licence to not be very reliable, at least not reliable enough to trust from a practical legal perspective. Using a photo that you don't own the copyright to is a risk. You may be infringing copyright by doing so. The owner may eventually ask you to stop, or they may sue you for damages. Further, some copyright infringement is criminal 17 USC 506. In my opinion, it would be unwise to use a work commercially that you don't affirmatively know you have permission to use.
This is all outlined at Terms of Service - Stack Exchange When you ask a question, and/or comment on or answer a question, or otherwise participate on an SE site, you license your content to SE. You agree that all Subscriber Content that You contribute to the Network is perpetually and irrevocably licensed to Stack Exchange under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike license. In turn, (emphasis mine) Subscriber acknowledges that Stack Exchange has no control over, and no duty to take any action regarding: which users gains access to the Network; which Content Subscriber accesses via the Network; what effects the Content may have on Subscriber; how Subscriber may interpret or use the Content; or what actions Subscriber may take as a result of having been exposed to the Content. Much of the Content of the Network is provided by and is the responsibility of the user or subscriber who posted the Content. Stack Exchange does not monitor the Content of the Network and takes no responsibility for such Content. Subscriber releases Stack Exchange from all liability for Subscriber having acquired or not acquired Content through the Network. ... This doesn't mean someone can't sue you anyway, notwithstanding that disclaimer. Anyone can sue anyone in civil court. That's the way the system works. Someone could track you down and sue you for the (bad) advice you gave that cooked their Macbook, even though they got that advice on SE and SE states that SE is not responsible for any damages resulting from the use of the information. The TOS of all SE site(s) shows that anyone who uses SE sites is bound by this click-through agreement, even if they didn't read it. And that should suffice in a court if it gets that far. It should suffice for any attorney thinking of taking the case of someone who wants to sue you. Again, someone could sue you; but chances are really great that it will never go very far due to the legal nature of SE and your contributions. This SE site - Law SE - has more of a specialized TOS, as practicing law without a license is illegal, and giving legal information as a layperson (or even as an attorney, of which there are some who particpiate here) needs special terms; see the sidebar for this disclaimer and link: Law Stack Exchange is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for individualized advice from a qualified legal practitioner. Communications on Law Stack Exchange are not privileged communications and do not create an attorney-client relationship. General Disclaimer - Law Stack Exchange So, if you do get sued by someone who cooked their Macbook by following your bad advice, you can ask about the lawsuit here on Law SE. But, unless your question is about general legal procedures, terms, case law, etc. (as outlined at What topics can I ask about here? - Law SE), your question will be closed because this site is not for giving specific legal advice in specific legal situations, especially active lawsuits. You will be advised to talk to an attorney.
You are clearly seeking legal advice. Answers on this site come from anonymous people on the internet and are not legal advice. You should not act based on information from this site. I am unaware of any lawsuit where one would be sued for merely storing and reading HTML for personal use. Downloading a webpage is probably not a copyright violation. Most things you create, including HTML source code, are protected by copyright and copyright includes the exclusive right to choose who can read what you created. I couldn't find any actual reference to this but I would hazard a guess that displaying an HTML webpage online is implicitly allowing others to read that code. I believe this guess is correct because all modern web browsers have the capability to view source that nobody considers illegal and browsers also include the capability to save webpages to disk. These browsers are made by companies with large legal departments, I doubt Internet Explorer would include this function if using it was a copyright violation. Here begins speculation: However, your expanded question says that not only you wish to read the HTML code but you also wish to process it, extract information from it and use what you learn this way. This could, I think, be prevented by the copyright holder. Still, what you are describing is commonly done in the world. Services such as Google, Bing or the Wayback Machine go far beyond what you are doing. In theory, I can see this as being a copyright violation but again, the fact that these big companies - without any kind of contract with the website owners - keep doing it is big evidence in favor of legality of storing webpages. You should be careful about how you use the stored data, though. For example, computer programs often have a stipulation in EULA that prevents you from reverse engineering the code. I could see that the use of some websites could be protected in such manner. Further (not authoritative) internet pages on this topic: https://stackoverflow.com/q/22819287/1580088 https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20120621055815AAvJPvN
I'm assuming that you are in the UK, as you are talking about the British Standards Institue. In general the truth cannot be copyrighted but an expression of that truth can be, provided that it is creative or original to at least some extent. In this case the equations and constants you want to use are descriptions of scientific truths. If you translate them into another form (e.g. a computer program) then you are not copying the creative bit (the layout and arrangement of those equations and explanatory text), so you are not violating the copyright. Edit: I should also have said for (3) that their descriptions of the constants and variables will be copyright. You would have to avoid copying their words. However given that these are going to be terse descriptions of facts your words can still be pretty similar without infringing on copyright, because there are only so many ways of describing the acceleration due to gravity, or whatever. Take a look at some alternative references to see what words they use.
I assume based on your reference to .edu and your can-spam-act-of-2003 tag that you are interested in United States law. The scheme you describe is illegal under the CAN-SPAM Act. 15 USC 7704 (b) (1) (a) (ii) (b) Aggravated violations relating to commercial electronic mail (1) Address harvesting and dictionary attacks (A) In general It is unlawful for any person to initiate the transmission, to a protected computer, of a commercial electronic mail message that is unlawful under subsection (a), or to assist in the origination of such message through the provision or selection of addresses to which the message will be transmitted, if such person had actual knowledge, or knowledge fairly implied on the basis of objective circumstances, that— (i) the electronic mail address of the recipient was obtained using an automated means from an Internet website or proprietary online service operated by another person, and such website or online service included, at the time the address was obtained, a notice stating that the operator of such website or online service will not give, sell, or otherwise transfer addresses maintained by such website or online service to any other party for the purposes of initiating, or enabling others to initiate, electronic mail messages; or (ii) the electronic mail address of the recipient was obtained using an automated means that generates possible electronic mail addresses by combining names, letters, or numbers into numerous permutations. The last part (ii) specifically forbids what you propose (&quot;combining names... into various permutations). Under 15 USC 7706 you may be liable for statutory damages of up to $250 per email. In addition to being illegal, I suspect your plan will also be ineffective: this sort of spam attack would be really easy for the university to detect and block.
There's existing copyright infringement and future copyright infringement. Let's say you sold a million records with infringing contents. That's copyright infringement. It has happened, you can't undo it. Now you get sued. If you think you will lose, it would be a good idea to change the music to be not infringing, so the next million records are not infringing and add to the damages. It doesn't fix the infringement that has already been done, but makes sure there is no further infringement. And infringement after you were told about it and asked to stop might be punished more harshly.