What countries&#39; copyright laws would I need to abide by if I wrote a heavily modified rearrangement of an existing song for third-party usage? Let's say that I, citizen of Alicetopia in the EU, were creating a derivative work of a copyrighted composition. This would be a heavily modified instrumental rearrangement of an existing song, to the point where it would be basically unrecognizable unless you already knew what you were looking for. Hypothetically, said song would have been written in the late '80s by a Bobvillian band (outside of the EU). (Would it matter which country the song was recorded in? Because it would be yet another country, heh). Now, to further complicate the issue, assume that I were planning to license usage rights to a group of friends for them to use as background music in an indie videogame of their making, that said friends lived in Charlieland in the EU, and that they were looking into digital distribution of said videogame, which could potentially entail selling the game in other countries, in and outside of the EU. So my question is, what countries' copyright laws would my friends and I need to abide by in order to decide whether we could use such a track and whether we would need to pay royalties? Alicetopia? Bobville? Charlieland? Potentially every single country where we decided to distribute the game?
The laws wherever a copy is made or the work is published If the game is going to be distributed online then the laws of every country where this happens.
Yes So far so good. This is a copyright violation but it is probably fair use - certainly there is case law permitting a copy of a backup digital asset to be made so I don’t see why a similar argument wouldn’t work with backing up a physical book. Clear copyright violation. Alice can rent out the original under the first sale doctrine but the ‘backup’ is not so protected. It’s not fair use because it’s use is commercial, the work is a type of work the author expects to profit from, the entire work has been copied and the use is deleterious to the market i.e. the renters are less likely to buy an original - it falls foul of all four factors of the fair use test.
You also retain the right to license the work to others. Therefore you can sell similar rights to MusicBook and anyone else, as long as you do not grant an exclusive license (you have already licensed another party to distribute). They do not gain the right to sub-license your work. If you had executed a copyright transfer, you would have no rights to the work whatsoever (leaving out moral rights for jurisdictions that have them and where they are absolute).
The relevant concept is dedicating a work to the public domain, that is, saying in the work something like "This work is dedicated to the public domain". I understand that this isn't entirely reliable in European civil law. The preferred alternative is to license it to the public. However, you have to decide how "free" you want the work to be made. The normal state of affairs, where you do nothing and just rely on copyright law, is that you have the sole right to allow copies to be made and derivative works to be created. Thus if someone were to make a derivative work based on your composition, they would need your permission: but then they would have the right what they created (such as a translation). If you just abandon your property right to the work, you impose no obligation on others, and a person can freely create a translation (which is now their property). If you execute the right public license, you can allow people to use your work as long as they include that license in their versions. A fairly common public licensing scheme is the Creative Commons licenses. That article gives a decent summary of relevant rights and how particular licenses correspond to configurations of permissions. I would say that the most difficult thing to do is to figure out what you don't want to happen, and pick a license that matches that interest.
This appears to be very clear to me: "NPR does not allow other websites to post our content..." I cannot think of a more clear way to say "Do not reproduce our content on your site." Since you asked about licensing the right to reproduce their content, and they flatly ignored your request, I think it is safe to assume that they are not interested in licensing that right to you, even for a fee. This is also consistent with their "NPR does not allow [any] other websites to post..." language. It is always the copyright holder's right to refuse to offer any particular person (or all persons generally) a license, no matter what payment they might offer. (With the exception of statutory licenses, which in the U.S. exist only for recording covers of musical works.) They have also ignored your request to recompense them for infringement already performed. If in the future they decide to take legal action against you for your past infringement (hugely unlikely that such a hassle would be worthwhile for NPR) or seek any out of court settlement (again, quite unlikely they will care enough), I'm sure they will let you know. As they've said in their email, you are welcome to link to NPR's content. You are, of course, not welcome to spread misinformation or lies about NPR by claiming something like, "Look at this wonderful article that NPR wrote purely for us, at our personal request," or "NPR thinks that In Home Teaching Agency XXX is a great company, so we built a curriculum around their content," when NPR has never said any such thing. Any legal issue around linking would probably be a trademark offense, by wrongfully suggesting that NPR endorses you, or by misrepresenting yourself as an agent of NPR. If you don't do either of things, and just say, "Here's an article on [subject X] published by NPR," you're probably fine. If you want to be very thorough, you could include a disclaimer on your site like, "In Home Teaching Agency XXX is not a licencee or partner of NPR. Links to NPR articles are included for educational purposes only," or similar. This seems pretty excessive to me, since a reasonable person won't assume that linking to an article from a major news source suggests a partnership, but I suppose it couldn't hurt to include such a disclaimer.
If I lock you in a room without access to anything and tell you &quot;Write a novel&quot; and you write a novel with characters, you have copyright in the work. But it's not absolute: If you use your own characters, you own all the copyright in the work, but not in the idea, as ideas are not copyrightable, see Feist v Rural. If you use someone else's characters extensively (as in more than a short hommage/cameo), you very likely make a derivate. You own a copyright in your part, as in the expression of the story or pictures you created, but you do not gain property interest in the existing characters' expression. Since the copyright to the characters lies with the owner of their IP, you need their OK to release (and also to even make) your work - as with the owner of a copyright is the sole right to decide on distribution and creation of derivates under 17 USC § 106 (2). Also remember that making an unlicensed derivate work risks having nothing you can sue for in case the original copyright owner lifts your ideas and scenes-a-faire parts and adapts them for their own derivate, see Anderson v Stallone The strange case of fanfiction chains... Now, there is a strange situation when a work is based on a work which is based on a work... Then, publishers and editors start with red ink and the result is, that what people know as Twilight now has nothing to do with the fanfiction it started as (It wasn't Vampires in the original draft), and 50 Shades of Grey ended up striking any and all supernatural from it, despite it having been a Twilight fanfiction originally. By making own characters and own expression of the world, there could be no copyright infringement. US law vs Egypt law? Both Egypt and the US have signed the Berne convention, meaning that copyright is very very similar in the broad strokes that the right to allow or disallow derivates is with the copyright holder. Also, since Ben10's copyright owners are to the best of my knowledge in the US (Cartoon Network Studios &amp; Men of Action Studios), they will sue in a US federal court.
The DMCA prohibits circumvention of technological measures that effectively control access to a copyrighted work. So you can't legally "crack" the software, period -- even if you own a disc containing the software and have a valid license to use it, a license to use the work is not authorization to circumvent access controls. So if the disc is copy-protected, by my understanding of the DMCA, you're kinda screwed. (The company might be willing to provide you a replacement copy, even if only to maintain the illusion that the software is "licensed, not sold". But you can't make one yourself.) Likewise, if you have a copy of the disc but have lost the license key, you're screwed. Even if you could prove beyond any doubt that you are the licensee, there's not any law i'm aware of that would compel the copyright owner to provide you another license key. And courts have held that distribution of license keys without authorization is a violation of the DMCA. So whoever might provide you another key, if they're not the copyright holder, has broken the law. If you managed to copy the disc from a friend (without circumventing any kind of copy protection), and had your own license key, you might be in a better position. Many EULAs allow you to make a backup copy. Even if they didn't, copyright law does, so there's a possible case for fair use.
To do so I used some images and Gifs which may be under copyright but since I don't earn money for myself and there is no company backing me I was hoping that there is some protection for private persons like me who just want to showcase the project. Sorry. If your website is public facing (i.e. not password protected and available only to family and close friends), you need to follow copyright law. There is no exception to copyright just because a project is run by an individual for non-commercial purposes. I am also insecure about the GDPR regulations since I give users the ability to create an account and try it out. Your profile says you're in the EU. Then you need to comply with the GDPR. Is there any way to protect me against greedy lawyers and companies? Could I write something like: "This website is a peace of art" and save myself with arguments like "artistic freedom" or "free speech"? Nope. A controversial website run by Peter Sunde had at one point a "free speech" disclaimer (similar to the one you propose) posted. However, Sunde did never use this defense in court: Finnish court slaps Peter Sunde with €350k fine. If he had shown up in court, I am pretty sure the court would have told him that such a disclaimer has no legal merit. The only protection that will make you completely safe is to adhere to the law.