Using trademarked names as a reference in a commercial context Is it possible to use a trademarked name as some sort of a reference for public available data (even when used in a commercial context)? Non-Commercial example: Let's say we have an app that displays the amount of twitter followers for each account. To do so you obviously have to display the names of the account which (some of them) might be trademarked names. This is a non-commercial use case and is just using publicly available information (through twitter api for example). As far as I researched this is fine as long as of course Twitter in this case allows it. Commercial example: Let's extend on previous example for easier explanation. We extend the app with actual in-app purchases. For example a user could place a bet on the amount of growth the account will have in the next x days. Would this still fall into "fair use"? The trademarked name is only used to reference to the publicly available "follower count" and the app / product is in no other way connected to the twitter user / trademark. (Except of any special laws for gambling, that was just the easiest example I could imagine)
“Fair Use” is a (US) copyright concept: it has no relevance to Trademarks. A Trademark may also be subject to copyright, for example, the word Google is a trademark but it is not copyright - the Google logo is both a trademark and subject to copyright. You infringe a trademark when you use it in such a way that people think that your goods and services are their goods and services. You don’t infringe a trademark when you use it to actually refer to them or their goods and services- that is what trademarks are for.
Literary references are generally considered to be a form of Fair Use in the US, and a form of Fair Dealing in those countries that have that legal concept. Mentioning that a character has read a fictional work, or likes a character in na fictional work, or even models his actions on such a character, or thinks he is that character is not treated as an infringement of copyright. Indeed, even &quot;cameo&quot; appearances of a literary character are not usually treated as infringements. A character in a period mystery might briefly meet Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot, say, without that being an infringement. If significant sections of the new work involve imitating the plot of the source work, while the delusional character tries to act out his or her delusion, that might make the work a derivative work of the source (here DC comics). Creating a derivative work requires permission from the copyright holder. Whether a work is derivative depends on the specific facts, and cannot be judged from the information in the question. The more of the specific details from the source work that are used, and the more extensive the use is within the new work, the more likely it is that the new work would be held to be derivative. The details will matter, and ultimately it would be a matter for the judgement of a court if a suit were brought claiming that the work was derivative.
Names cannot be copyrighted at all, in any country. They can, however, be protected as trademarks. The general idea is that if one uses a name to identify a product or service, or a creator of products or services, others cannot use the same or a similar name to identify their products or services in such a way that a reasonable person might be confused into thinking that the two came from the same source, or one was endorsed or approved by the other. Trademarks are limited in scope to a particular country, A name that is protected in Canada, say, will not be protected in the US unless steps have been taken to protect it there. In some countries a trademark must be officially registered to get any protection, In others, such as the United States, merely using the mark can give a degree of protection, although registration give more protection. Each country maintains a trademark registry which can be searched for existing marks. There are search firms that will do such searches for a client, and also search for marks in use but not registered, for a fee. Trademark protection is generally restricted by the type of product or service involved. An anti-virus program, say, called &quot;Guard dog&quot; would probably not interfere with a fantasy game called &quot;Guardog&quot;. A private security service of the same name would pretty surely not interfere. The range of protection depends on how widely known the product is, but &quot;software related&quot; is a very wide area, and except for famous marks, a mark protected in connection with one area of software will not be protected in a very different area of software. Names that a purely invented, such as Kodak, are more strongly protected than descriptive marks such as &quot;Best Pizza&quot; Particularly famous names such as &quot;Microsoft&quot; get additional protection even outside their usual areas, so &quot;Microsoft Pizza&quot; might be a problem. Logos and other graphic marks can also be protected as trademarks, but that is not what the question asked about. The styling of a trademark, such as a particular font, choice of colors, and so on, can also be protected. This is called &quot;trade dress&quot;. A disclaimer making it clear that a somewhat similar name is not related, and the is no affiliation can help avoid avoid an infringement suit. For example: Pear brand kites are in no way associated with, sponsored or approved by the makers of Pear smartphones. On this site we cannot give specific legal advise, so we cannot evaluate whether a specific proposed trademark would or would not infringe an existing mark. It might be well to consult an attorney with trademark experiences before finally choosing a name and doing marketing under it.
Assuming Chegg own the copyright, then they can restrict the activities that copyright protects The statement you quote is no more or less than the rights granted to them by copyright law. Basically, it's their stuff, they get to decide how you can use it. However, that does not necessarily mean that the uses that you have nominated are prohibited. For that, we would have to look at the specific fair use or fair dealing exemptions to copyright protection where you are. It's likely that both of your usage scenarios would meet fair use and probably fair dealing (which is harder to meet). You may also find that, buried somewhere in those massive terms of use, is something that deals with this directly.
Well, actually, fair use is maximally relevant. Copyright means, put simply, DO NOT COPY. Citing or not is irrelevant (plagiarism is a whole other non-legal kettle of fish). Technically, what you describe is violation of copyright. However, under section 107 of Title 17 (the copyright law), you could attempt to defend yourself against an infringement suit on the basis that your action was "fair use". See this LSE q&amp;a for the essentials of fair use.
Your question lacks some details. So you registered a domain name, and later find someone else used that domain name (in the past) for a hobby website? Then no, you don't need to worry about it. If that person has a current trademark on the name used in the domain name, and your website provides/sells products or services in the same area, then you could have a problem. But that doesn't sound like it's the issue.
It Depends If the person reusing the image (lets call that person R for reuser) is not complying with the terms of the Creative commons license, which include a requirement to provide attribution of the source work, then R cannot rely on the license, and the granting of the license ad the presence of a license declaration is legally irrelevant. R must have some other basis to reuse the image. This could be an exception to copyright, such as fair use or fair dealing. Or possibly the image is not protected by copyright, for example because its copyright has expired, or because it is a work of the US Federal Government being used in the US. In the absence of such a basis, R is infringing copyright. In much of the world copyright now lasts for 70 years after the death of the author (or of all co-authors). In some different terms apply, ranging from life+50 to life+100. Sound recordings and photos get shorter terms in some countries. In the US the term is life+70 for recent works, but for work created and published before 1978 more complex rules apply, depending on the date of publication, and whether laws on notice and renewal were complied with. See the well-known chart Copyright Term and the Public Domain for the various cases and when copyright expires in each case. The question asks about fair use. This is a US-specific legal concept. It is designed to be flexible, an is highly fact-dependent. As a result it is rarely possible to say if a use will qualify as a fair use with certainty until a court passes on it. See Is this copyright infringement? Is it fair use? What if I don&#39;t make any money off it? for more on fair use. Not providing attribution is itself often considered to weigh against fair use. The question does not give enough detail to make even a good guess as to whether such a use is likely to be held to be fair use. Identifying the kind of eagle has some educational value, which might favor fair use to some extent, but must be considered in light of the overall purpose of the use, which is not described. There is no indication as to whether the original work is creative or factual, or whether the reuse would be likely to harm the market for the original. Much use of images on social media does not stand up under a fair use analysis. Providing proper attribution might well help any fair use claim. See also Do you have to give attribution if an image falls under Creative Commons?
Yes it would be legal to do so. A full analysis would look at trademark law (where the bottom line is that the use of the Coke mark is not misleading since you are selling bona fide Coke), and copyright law. Whether it was non-infringing or fair use, is a closer call, but there is little doubt that one way or the other, this would be legal.