Can a copyrighted work be asigned via an adhesion contract? Let's say you're the author of a book. Then you want to post a chapter online on some website. Or upload it for ePublishing. It doesn't matter where, but let's say that somewhere in that site's eight-bazillion word "terms of service" agreement, that no one reads, but everyone "agrees to" when they create an account, it says: By posting anything on our site you assign us all copyright to the posted work... Or similar language. Would they they then legally own you charterers, world, story, etc? Or would it be unenforceable? And if so, are there any safeguards you could take to preemptively block such behavior, such as a disclaimer inside the book cover that reads something like: Copyright 1999 - Me. Copyright may not be assigned by adhesion contract, or any digital terms of service agreement, or via any online form, or by any means other than a signature of the copyright holder signed using a blue ink pen on physical paper or parchment. Any other contract or agreement that attempts or purports to assign copyright shall not be valid. Cragislist recently tried (and is still trying in different ways) to get the copyright for whatever you post there via TOS. But if that's legal for them to do that, what's to stop someone like Amazon from "updating" their terms of service for eBook publishers (which of course their TOS says they can do), and making it say, "You assign to Amazon all copyrights for the uploaded ebooks". Or even, "by uploading an ebook for Kindle, you give Amazon Prime the right to make film adaptions of your work". Is there a way to protect your IP from inadvertently being licensed/stolen/assigned via TOS "agreements", without having to waste your life reading huge one-sided online "contracts" that are "subject to change without notice" anyway?
are there any safeguards you could take to preemptively block such behavior, such as a disclaimer inside the book cover that reads something like The safeguard you outline would be overridden as soon as the author enters any contract that requires assignment of copyright. (I would not delve in the differences between licensing and copyright assignment because that hypothetical author is dealing with a contract of adhesion which readily requires assignment; the author has no option to change the ToS to allow for licensing only) Under contract law, one of the essential prerequisites is that the conditions of a contract be entered knowingly and willfully. By deliberately clicking on a ToS page to move forward with the uploading a copyrighted work, the author is signaling his awareness and acceptance of the ToS. The fact that the author chose not to read the ToS is irrelevant and very unlikely to strike whatever entitlements the website owner formulated in the accepted ToS. For the same reason, the author's safeguard disclaimer does not bind the website owner: It cannot be said that the website owner was aware of that disclaimer at the time of the formation of contract between the author and the website owner. That is, the website owner did not knowingly and willfully accepted the author's safeguard. The website owner is not even expected to know about any safeguards which one of its potential user intends to establish. The length of a ToS document is also irrelevant because the website owner has the valid argument that "the user-author could have skimmed through the ToS or do a search (via Control-Find) of keywords such as 'copyright' or 'property', whence any allegation of 'inadvertent' assignment of copyright is untenable". Is there a way to protect your IP from inadvertently being licensed/stolen/assigned via TOS "agreements", without having to waste your life reading huge one-sided online "contracts" that are "subject to change without notice" anyway? Yes. That consists of not uploading one's works in such platforms. In contract law that would be expressed as "declining an exchange of considerations". There are many other alternatives for an author to promote his work without being required to assign copyright.
From your question(s), as well as your various comments, I understand you to have two general inquiries: 1. Is there any infringement of copyright laws if you use things like the titles of books, games, apps, names, address (and any other number of things) which you will then put into datasets that will be licensed for proprietary commercial purposes? You may freely put titles, names of people, places or things into datasets without fear that you are infringing on copyright or any other laws. That is clear. Copyright law does not protect names, titles, short phrases or expressions. Even if a name, title, or short phrase is novel or distinctive it cannot be protected by copyright. So, there is no point in discussing the doctrine of fair use in this context, because Fair Use is a defense, or a legal safe harbor that is merely an exception to copyright infringement allowing people to use a copyrighted works under specific circumstances. As I understand your intended endeavor, you will not be infringing on any copyrights to the extent that you are merely using factual data, like names of copyrighted things for the purpose of creating a dataset or an application to help access it. This is why I say you need not concern yourself with the test for Fair Use with regard to this issue. The Copyright Office states clearly, despite what people may think, that there are no exclusive rights in brief combinations of words such as: • Names of products or services • Names of businesses, organizations, or groups (including the names of performing groups) • Pseudonyms of individuals (including pen or stage names) • Titles of works • Catchwords, catchphrases, mottoes, slogans, or short advertising expressions • Listings of ingredients, as in recipes, labels, or formulas. When a recipe or formula is accompanied by an explanation or directions, the text directions may be copyrightable, but the recipe or formula itself remains uncopyrightable. Hence, these things are not registrable under a copyright. While something may be potentially attached to or included in copyrighted material, is not in and of itself subject to the protections of these laws. If it (whatever it is) cannot be registered for a copyright, it is not copyrightable. Because copyright registration/notices have been optional since 1989, when the U.S. attached itself to the Berne Convention, whereby copyright protection is automatic as soon as a work is “fixed in a tangible medium of expression” (written down, recorded, painted, etc.) it’s protected. No notice is required. Registration only becomes required for litigation or enforcement purposes. But this is really extraneous to your inquiry anyway, as far as it applies to the actual data. When you get into copying whole databases for your purpose, that analysis is different. 2. You want to "scrub" the internet for information that you intend to put into your proprietary datasets and use for commercial purposes, some or most of which is already in a database or some organized form, and you want to know if there is some sort of copyright or duty owned to the person who originally databased the materials? Since ideas, procedures, principles, discoveries, and devices are all specifically excluded from copyright protection, if you want to compile this type of information from the internet for the purpose of creating datasets, or searchable databases, this is permissible. That said, there are protections for existing databases under copyright law, provided under the concept of a "compilation copyright". A compilation copyright protects the collection and creative assembling of data or other materials. Compilation copyrights protect the collection and assembling of data or other materials, such that databases are generally protected by copyright law as compilations. Under the Copyright Act, a compilation is defined as a "collection and assembling of preexisting materials or of data that are selected in such a way that the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work of authorship." 17. U.S.C. § 101. The preexisting materials or data may be protected by copyright since the selections of materials and the form they take in an existing database may be original enough to be subject to a copyright. However, the data itself is merely information and is not protectable. The Copyright Act specifically states that the copyright in a compilation extends only to the compilation itself, and not to the underlying materials or data. 17 U.S.C. § 103(b). As a result, "compilation copyrights" can't be used to place protection upon those things that are otherwise not protectable. In the case of Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Company, Inc., the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a compilation work such as a database must contain a minimum level of creativity in order to be protectable under the Copyright Act. Feist makes clear that even a copyright protected database does not hold the right to prevent an individual from extracting factual data from the database (so long as you're not copying the entire database as a whole). If you take an already compiled and copyrighted dataset in its entirety, you must obtain a license for its use. However, if you are merely amassing great amounts of data to then put into your own dataset, that you are free to do. The big issue will be (and you seem to realize this) where you will amass this data from. Some websites have specific licenses in place that say you cannot use or rework their content. However, many times these websites simply throw these license requirements out there for users to see, despite the fact that they may not be (and some would argue) are not enforceable. The courts have heard arguments that "contracts" (the end-user licenses) that protect databases and information on websites is beyond the protection available through copyright law should be "preempted" by the Copyright Act itself. The preemption argument goes like this: Federal law controlling something that is subject to interstate commerce or use, should be controlled by the federal laws. So,since the federal government has enacted the Copyright Act to govern any protections to any original works, states should be (arguably are) prohibited from having contradictory laws. Because of the ability of a federal statute to preempt state law, and the fact that the Copyright Act at 17 U.S.C. § 301 sets forth specific preemptions, no state may create rights that are equivalent to any of the exclusive rights provided under the Act. It is this concept of preemption that prevents copyright protection from varying depending upon the state where a work of authorship is created. Arguably, the same is true for the internet, and supposed contractual relationship created through licenses that dictates how non-copyrightable material may be used. In the case of ProCD, Incorporated v. Matthew Zeidenberg and Silken Mountain Web Services, Inc. the court examined whether an end-user of a CD ROM phone database was subject to the license, when they extracted a large portion of the database and made it available over the Internet. The database was almost the same as the type of data in the Feist case-The lower court rejected all copyright claims and found that the shrinkwrap license that controlled the end user's right to use the data was both unenforceable (as a shrink wrap license) and preempted by the Copyright Act. As a result, there was no relief available to the creator of the phone database and the end-user was free to extract the data and use it as he saw fit. However, on appeal this decision was reversed (7th circuit). The appellate court did acknowledge that the database (on the CD) was not original enough to be protected by copyright (finding no copyright infringement by the end-user); However, they did find the end-user was breach of contract, since the shrink-wrap license prohibited the end-user's conduct. What this tells us is that these licenses (on websites) may or may not be enforceable. While the 7th Circuit found a contract right pursuant to the license, despite the preemption argument, another appellate court that is more liberal may find otherwise. Also, this was a disk, not the internet, which is the "wild west" of information, largely unregulated and unlitigated as it pertains to the legality and enforceability of (some) regulations that do exist. License agreements for site use on the internet are everywhere. If you take a database from some site that has a license saying you cannot take their work and add to it, or whatever, and you do add it to other databases that are not licensed and then make your own dataset - chances are you are NOT going to be infringing on anyone's copyright. That said, you may be in breach of contract (the license) if they find out about it, and sue you (using it doesn't put you in breach; only getting sued and having a court determine you're in breach puts you in breach. It may be a distinction worth contemplation, but that is up to you). The safest, bet would be to get a license from them to rework the materials. If the material is generic enough, and will be changed enough, that you are creating your own new (copyrightable) work - I'm not sure how they would know you "scrubbed the data in contravention of their license agreement ( I have NO CLUE if there is coding or metadata attached to it such that it's identifiable in that way. I have not tech background and do not endorse taking what's not yours). But if they can and do know, they could cause problems for you. Lastly, I will just say that the internet is littered with sites that claim copyrights, or impose unenforceable licenses on material that is ripe for public use. Just because it says it's theirs does not make it so. The inverse is also true. Just because a site does not claim copyright to something, does not mean it is in the public domain. I would recommend either sticking to public domain/use sites for your scrubbing endeavors, or seeking permissions from the sites who impose licensing requirements. Short of that, I would recommend (as I already have) seeking an formal legal opinion to say that you are not imposing on anyone's copyrights (this could only be done once you showed an attorney every place you took material from, as well as what the material is), and that the licenses from sites with generalized information that may try to limit use, are unenforceable. I would do this before you invest a lot of time or money into something that is largely based on the accumulation of other peoples work product. I wish there was an answer certain, but there just isn't without seeing everything in the end.
First of all derivative works are not exactly "illegal". They are fully legal if the owner of the copyright in the original work has given permission. If no permission has been given, they may be copyright infringements. But they may fall under an exception to copyright. Under US law, the most common exception is "fair use". See this question and answer for more on fair use. But particularly relevant in this case is that a parody is usually a fair use, although as in every fair-use decision, there is pretty much no clear-cut, hard&amp;fast rule on what is and is not fair use. In the UK and much of the EU (or maybe all of it, I am not sure) there is a somewhat similar concept known as "fair dealing". It is also an exception to copyright. So it is possible that such works fall under fair use, fair dealing, or another exception to copyright, or that the rights-holder has given permission. Secondly, copyright infringement is a tort, not a crime, under most circumstances. It is enforced when, and only when, a copyright-holder chooses to take action, sending a take-down notice or copyright complaint, of filing suit for infringement. Some rights-holders choose as a matter of policy not to take such actions, thinking that such derivative works actually benefit them. That is their choice to make. Some rights-holders don't have the time or money to track down and take action against most infringements, and will only act if they think the derivative work will in some way cost them a lot of money or harm their reputation. Some rights-holders may just not have heard, yet, of specific possible infringing derivative works. As for Acta2, it has not yet been approved, the Wikipedia article linked in the questions says: In order for the text of the directive to become law in the EU, it must be approved by the European Council on 9 April 2019 The article also mentions significant continuing opposition. If it is approved, it is not clear, to me at least, how it will affect sites hosting such content, nor how it will interact with the copyright law of individual EU nations. If approved, it will no doubt take some time before enforcement is widespread. And of course it will only apply when EU law applies. If both site and author are outside the EU -- say if both are from the US -- it seems that it could not apply.
Canada In Canada, "the author of a work shall be the first owner of the copyright therein" (Copyright Act § 13(1)). Also, "[w]here the author of a work was in the employment of some other person under a contract of service or apprenticeship and the work was made in the course of his employment by that person, the person by whom the author was employed shall, in the absence of any agreement to the contrary, be the first owner of the copyright" (Copyright Act § 13(3)). Nothing in your description of the situation describes to me an employer/employee relationship, so in my opinion, § 13(3) is not implicated. Even if there were an agreement or contract to transfer copyright to an LLC or assign it to the other individuals, absent an actual writen assignment, the original owner still owns the copyright. "[N]o assignment or grant is valid unless it is in writing signed by the owner of the right..." (Copyright Act § 13(4)). In University of London Press Ltd v University Tutorial Press Ltd, there was a contract that required assignment of copyright. "The examiner was the first owner, and he has not assigned the copyright in writing signed by him or his agent. The copyright therefore remains in the examiners, subject to the obligation under the contract of employment to assign it to the University or as it may direct." Even though copyright was owed to the University, it didn't become theirs until the written assignment took place. United States Similarly, in the US, "Copyright in a work protected under this title vests initially in the author or authors of the work.", and "in the case of a work made for hire, the employer or other person for whom the work was prepared is considered the author" (17 U.S.C § 201). "A transfer of copyright ownership, other than by operation of law, is not valid unless an instrument of conveyance, or a note or memorandum of the transfer, is in writing and signed by the owner of the rights conveyed or such owner's duly authorized agent." (17 U.S.C § 204) Conclusion In both Canada and the US, transfer of copyright requires an affirmative act (a written, signed document, or a note or memorandum, etc.) Since nothing in your description indicates that the author has prepared a signed, written, instrument of conveyance or note or memorandum of the transfer of copyright, the copyright still belongs to the original author.
This sounds completely incorrect to me. First, subsequent research is not normally a "derivative work" for the purpose of copyright, since copyright doesn't protect your ideas but only the particular form in which you have expressed those ideas. Second, as the owner of the copyright, you can permit anyone to make any sort of copy or derivative work, or sell, assign, or license the ability to do so to other parties, without regard to whether the work has been published. The real reason that nonpublication of your work would stifle further research is that researchers will not have access to it.
It does not matter whether the document is authentic, because it is true, by law. Under copyright law, you must have permission of the copyright holder to copy any protected work (original creative work not created as a work of the US, as an example under US law). This is true whether or not the copyright holder tells you that copying requires permission. A matter for more concern is &quot;false permission&quot;, where a person without the right to grant permission utters something that the courts would usually interpret as being &quot;permission&quot;, for example releasing a Harry Potter book under CC-0. The legal requirement is that you have actual permission, not that a prohibition was not communicated to you. It is in your interest to know whether the actual person making available a work under some license actually has the right to grant a license. But there is no way to know for certain who holds copyright. You can, however, attempt to determine that a work has been registered with the US copyright office, looking here. Works are still protected when not registered, so failing to find a copyright registration does not guarantee that the work is &quot;open access&quot;. It would tell you who the registered copyright holder is. There is no &quot;innocent infringement&quot; defense, but under §504(c)(2), your liability for statutory damages can be reduced to as little as $200, if you can prove that there were no indications that the work is protected.
No, it means you can't copy it. By default, the copyright to a work is owned by its creator, and nobody else is allowed to copy it, or create derived works, without their permission. That permission can be granted by a license. "License unknown" doesn't really tell us anything, but it certainly isn't clearly granting you permission. So you don't have permission to copy, and thus you cannot. You would have to seek permission from the copyright holder. See also If no licence is distributed with an application/source code, what license applies by default if any? (Some jurisdictions do allow for "fair use" exceptions, which allow you to copy a work without permission. You haven't said what jurisdiction you are in.)
The following answer is based on US-law. I am not a lawyer; this is not legal advice. If the book you read is in the public domain* you should be fine. Otherwise what you are doing is copyright infringement and probably not protected by fair use**. One of the rights granted to copyright holders is to control derivative works, and transference to different mediums, which is what your recordings would be. Under US law, whether an instance of copyright infringement is fair use is evaluated on a case-by-case basis, weighing four points: the purpose and character of one's use the nature of the copyrighted work what amount and proportion of the whole work was taken the effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of the copyrighted work In my non-lawyer evaluation, point 1 depends on what you do in your video (unless you monetize your Youtube video, in which case it is likely to be decided against you), but if you are merely reading the book out aloud, it is unlikely to be in your favor (although it may not be against you as an &quot;educational tool&quot;). Point 2 depends on what is being read, with a informative work (e.g. a textbook) being more likely to be fair use than a creative work (e.g. a novel). Point 3 depends on how much and what proportion of a work you use; since you are presumably reading a whole book, this would most likely be ruled against you. Point 4 would almost certainly be decided against you, as you are essentially creating an unauthorized audiobook. In summary, you can read a book aloud. You can record your reading of it for your personal use. You should NOT upload it to Youtube, or other sharing sites. *Note that different countries have differing rules on when a book enters the public domain, and since the internet crosses borders, multiple rule sets may apply.