Copyright When Using Works in CC0/Public Domain If I use works in the public domain or with a CC0 license (sound effects, images, 3d materials) and alter them (give a 3d model I've created a CC0 material, alter a sound effect in audacity) can I claim copyright on the altered work or does it stay in the public domain?﻿
You cannot claim copyright protection of the underlying work, but you can claim protection for your contribution. Under 17 USC 101, the resulting work is a derivative work: A “derivative work” is a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a “derivative work”. As an "original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression", the work is protected by copyright law: but that only applies to the modifications that you added.
Exactly the same way it works over all other content There are no special classes of copyright, there’s just copyright. What a user of a service may do with copyright materials will be spelled out in the licence. If there is no licence, then they are left with fair use/fair dealing.
As the question says the "Fugue in A Major" by Shostakovich is not in the public domain. The work was published in 1950, and so would not be PD under US law, and Shostakovich died in 1975, and so his works would not be PD in countries using a life+50, life+70, or longer term. Therefore, simply "making some changes" would be the creation of a derivative work and would be copyright infringement in and of itself, even if that work was not published or distributed. If a relatively short segment of the fuge was used, it might be considered a "fair use" under US copyright law, or perhaps a "fair dealing " in the laws of those countries that recognize this exception to copyright. But that is a very fact-intensive determination; it depends on the amount used, the manner and purpose for which it is used, and the harm, if any, to the market for the original work. One can never be absolutely sure that a use is a fair use until a court rules that it is. A two minute excerpt is fairly substantial, and might well not be held to be a fair use. Of course, you could seek permission from the Shostakovich estate (or whoever owns the copyright on the fugue). They might or might not grant it, and might or might not demand a fee. (As another answers mentions, there may be some question if the works of Shostakovich are protected by copyright under US law.)
The Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (and all versions) is explicitly &quot;non-sublicensable&quot;. If you receive a copy of the work under that license, you cannot place the work under a new license. The license grants you only the rights to A. reproduce and Share the Licensed Material, in whole or in part; and B. produce, reproduce, and Share Adapted Material. When you give copies of someone else's CC-licensed work to downstream recipients, they do not receive a license grant for the original work from you; they receive it from the original author/licensor: Downstream recipients. A. Offer from the Licensor – Licensed Material. Every recipient of the Licensed Material automatically receives an offer from the Licensor to exercise the Licensed Rights under the terms and conditions of this Public License. When you include someone else's CC-licensed work in an adaptation, you may license the adaptation under other terms, but the underlying CC-licensed work remains under its CC license. From the CC FAQ: If I derive or adapt material offered under a Creative Commons license, which CC license(s) can I use? If you make adaptations of material under a CC license (i.e. &quot;remix&quot;), the original CC license always applies to the material you are adapting even once adapted. The license you may choose for your own contribution (called your &quot;adapter's license&quot;) depends on which license applies to the original material. Recipients of the adaptation must comply with both the CC license on the original and your adapter’s license. When sharing someone else's work, the original CC-licensed work always remains under its original license. By contrast, the &quot;ShareAlike&quot; condition means that your own work used in an adaptation of a CC-BY-SA work must be placed under CC-BY-SA terms as well. ShakeAlike does not refer to the requirement to preserve the license on existing CC-licensed material (which is always present), but rather it refers to the requirement to include it on new material.
Generally, no, this will not violate copyright. Your end user might violate copyright, but that is their problem not yours. Your program is a tool, just like a word processor is. If I copy a Harry Potter book into a word processor that does not make the word processor maker liable. There is a concept of "contributory infringement", which I think is what you are concerned about. I don't know about Danish law in particular, but most countries would require evidence that you had reasonable knowledge that actual copyright violation was occuring, rather than just being aware that it might happen in theory. This is normally applied to file sharing services who have to have "notice and takedown" measures, file filters and the like. This isn't your concern as you never have any access to the files created by your users. You can also be found liable if you induce anyone to commit copyright violations. Don't draw your customers attention to the custom monster feature as a workaround for those copyrighted monsters, as that could be considered to be inducement. Also don't provide any "wizards" or similar tools which make it noticeably easier to duplicate the custom monsters (e.g. if you notice that the copyrighted custom dragon stats are all on a linear scale with dragon size, don't create a "dragon creation wizard" embodying that fact.) This assumes that your program runs entirely on the end user computer. Its different if you provide any kind of cloud storage for generated characters.
I'm wondering whos responsible for this code if people start using it? The user. Can the people using it that think its under GPL in any way get in trouble for it or be made to remove it from their projects? Yes, they can be sued (successfully) for copyright violation. It’s not enough that you think you have permission from the copyright holder - you actually have to have permission. The law places the onus on the copier to seek out and get permission from the copyright holder. In theory, someone deceived in this way could sue the repo poster(s) for misrepresentation, however, there are practical issues about finding them, having them in an accessible jurisdiction and if they are judgement proof. Copyright law was created to protect physical books and paintings - it doesn’t really fit with digital methods of reproduction but it is the law. It doesn’t matter that complying with it can be hard bordering on impossible - comply with it you must.
Recording the original work and editing that record is a breach of copyright. You are taking unauthorised copies of the original music and lyrics when you make the notes, and creating derivative works when you alter the notes of the song to match what you think they should be. Performing the songs is a breach of copyright in countries that don't provide for it explicitly (the USA is notably strange on this point). You cannot simply just take a piece of music and perform it this way everywhere, even for church service. In sum, what you're doing is at least partly and could be fully illegal.
Copyright requires originality Your infinity hard drive appears to be a machine designed to violate copyright by immediately copying anything presented to it. Damien Riehl and Noah Rubin were creating original melodies. These do not have copyright until they are fixed in a tangible medium. That's what the hard drive is for. This is insurance against them being sued if they release a song and someone claims it violates that person's copyright - they can produce in court the melody with a date stamp of 2015 (or whatever). GitHub or similar would be even better evidence. In this context there is a specific allegation that melody X infringes copyright. Riehl &amp; Rubin can then go to their records (including metadata) and say no, here is melody X version 1 through n and they all predate your release so we didn’t violate your copyright.