When can you use images from arxiv papers for commercial purposes? I was reading https://arxiv.org/abs/1412.6572 and noticed that the key image involving pandas is reproduced all over the Internet. I would like also to use the image in a commercial talk I am to give. I searched online and the suggestion is to read the individual license. In this case https://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/license.html says only: I grant arXiv.org a perpetual, non-exclusive license to distribute this article. I certify that I have the right to grant this license. I understand that submissions cannot be completely removed once accepted. I understand that arXiv.org reserves the right to reclassify or reject any submission. What is the situation with using an image from a paper licensed in this way in a commercial setting (with suitable attribution)? (I have emailed one of the authors to ask them directly but they have left their previous employer.)
Let me give some nuance, if not a definitive answer, since I'm not a lawyer. First, ArXiv holds only a license, not the underlying copyright. You need to contact the copyright holder to get permission (and a license). That may be the authors themselves, or a journal if they have assigned the copyright to it. However, it might be more complicated, especially for commercial use. Since the authors of papers frequently use images created by others, sometimes correctly and sometimes not, you should explore a bit more. Perhaps the paper itself will have a citation of the figure and an indication of its source, and hence of its copyright holder. In that case, the authors may not be able to help you, since, at best, they probably also hold just a license. However, for some academic purposes and in some jurisdictions an academic work can be permitted to use a figure (or other things) without regard to copyright. This is called fair use and it varies around the world. But a commercial work won't be able (probably) to depend on the same exception to copyright law and you still have to find the copyright holder. Moreover, even if the authors have a proper license (explicitly), that license (a) may not be transferrable and (b) might be for non-commercial use only. Academic copyright holders often (not universally) issue their work under a fairly permissive license but that is restricted to non-commercial use. Since they hold the copyright they can also issue additional licenses against it if they like, but need to do so explicitly. Ultimately, to use the work of others you have to deal with the copyright question. It is further complicated by the fact that a figure may be considered under the law as a "complete work" even if it appears within another work. So, replicating it is less likely to fall under fair use rules - though they vary. And, there is one other question you should ask yourself. Is your talk really a commercial use? If you are an academic, it may be a subtle question, or not.
I am assuming that you are in the United States for this question. Please correct me if this is not the case. MathWorks still holds the right to take action, which may be anything from cease-and-desist letters up to litigation. You have followed the correct process in asking for permission to use a trademark. The owner of the trademark, MathWorks, has given you their answer, which is quite simply, "no". You may not feel that their reasoning is fair, but the default state of trademarks is that they are under ownership of whomever created them, and you do not have permission to use them. Things will remain that way unless MathWorks changes their mind. It doesn't matter if it feels dismissive of them; they are under no obligation to even consider requests to use their marks. If they didn't explicitly say, "sure, go ahead", or even, "yes, you may use it provided you follow a list of conditions", then using their trademark will be an unlicensed usage. If you still would like to pursue getting permission to use their trademarked assets, you will need to try to contact them again. Until they say otherwise, using their trademarks will be considered unauthorized use. (Edited to add this clarification brought up by @David Siegel): However, your usage might not be violation of trademark. The primary purpose of trademark restriction is to stop someone from misrepresenting a product as being from the entity that owns the trademark; this stops someone from, for example, selling a cola soft drink called "Coke-a-Cola". The reasons for this are manyfold, but the basic idea is that allowing that type of usage means that consumers might not be able to tell that your product is distinct from the original, and could then mistakenly attribute the quality and level of service of the previous brand with the new product. If your usage of MATLAB marks is such that you are identifying the products used as from MathWorks, and not yourself, and are doing everything in good faith to disassociate your website and/or offerings from MathWorks, it is possible that your usage would be considered correct usage of trademark. Even if it is legal usage, MathWorks still may decide to take action. If MathWorks believes that your usage is unauthorized and that it is trademark violation, they may decide to take action. This is regardless of whether it actually is; until you have this case in front of a court, you will not get a definitive answer. We cannot answer whether this is a legal usage of trademark. Ultimately, whether or not a usage of a mark is considered to be correct usage is a question that can only be answered by the courts, which means the only person who can give you concrete advice on a course of action is a lawyer. In lieu of proper legal advice, you will need to weigh the risk of MathWorks taking action against your usage with the benefit you receive from usage. (Edited to add this clarification by @Dale M): Regardless, you may be breaking copyright by using the logo. There is a separate issue besides just trademark at play here. The copyright for the MATLAB logo belongs to whomever created it/owns it (presumably, MathWorks in this case). Using the logo without permission is a copyright violation. The only case in which this would not be a violation is if the logo is released for use in general under a compatible license, such as Creative Commons; do note that these licenses typically have additional conditions, such as requiring attribution. If you are unaware as to whether there is a such a license, or if you fail to follow the terms of the license, usage of the logo almost certainly constitutes copyright infringement.
Wikipedia has two kinds of pictures: Reusable pictures, most of them stored at http://commons.wikimedia.org Copyrighted pictures under fair-use, stored on the local Wikipedia (in your case, the Russian Wikipedia) but not on Commons. To know what case it is, just click on the Wikipedia picture, click on the blue "Description" button, and see whether it redirects you to Commons or not. Pictures on Commons are reusable if you include the author and license (see the full requirements). Commercial use is OK. Fair-use pictures can not be reused. Unfortunately, https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Файл:Tschedrovitsky.jpg is in the second case, so you can not reuse it, even in a non-commercial setting, unless you can justify that your usage qualifies as fair-use in your country. Hopefully one day someone will find a legally reusable picture of Shchedrovitski and upload it to Commons.
From the perspective of US law: Scenario 1: Removing the watermark is perfectly legal, obviously. You own the copyright. Scenario 2: Abandonware is not really a thing in the US when it comes to copyright (and the Wikipedia article you linked says this.) Even if the company went out of business, the copyright almost certainly went to somebody - the former owners, the creditors, etc. As far as the Internet Archive goes, they are taking advantage of an exemption in the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions, along with the copyright exemption found in 17 USC § 108. But both of these exemptions require you to be a "library or archive" to take advantage of them, and you are not a library or archive, so you cannot take advantage of either. As a practical matter, if the software is really abandoned it's unlikely that anyone will actually come after you for infringement, but that's not quite the same as it being legal - you could be on the hook for up to $150,000 in statutory damages per work infringed, if the owner does sue you. You could attempt to claim fair use, of course. If the image is abandoned you might get a favorable result on factor 4 of the fair use test (the effect on the market for the original) since there's no market if nobody can find the owner. But it would depend on the other factors; that alone wouldn't get you fair use. Scenario 3: I'm not sure where you get the idea that downloading a copyrighted image to your desktop is somehow protected. It isn't automatically legal to save a copy of something just because it's on the Internet. And the existence of a watermark may indicate that someone wanted to prevent the file from being copied. The website containing the image will likely have terms of use, which may indicate whether or not you're allowed to make a copy. For example, Stack Exchange's TOS says 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.
Probably Not The creator or owner of a piece of software does not in general have any copyright over the output when others run the software, unless that output is itself a derivative work of input supplied by the copyright owner, or forming part of the software. In this case the translation is a derivative work of the 19th century original, but that is assumed to be in the public domain. SAo google has no copyright on the resulting translation. But copyright protection is only available for &quot;original works of authorship&quot;. (See 17 USC 102 in the US, and similar laws elsewhere.) A machine-produced translation is not an original work, and it is surely not then work of the author of the overall book. However, the author would still have a copyright on the book as a whole. The legal situation is no different than if the author had simply quoted a 19th century work. One may incorporate public domain works into a later work, and that later work is still protected by copyright, provided that there is enough original contentr to make the work as a whole &quot;an original work of authorship&quot;. Others may use the PD [arts, or the original from which they are taken, but not the rest of the work (beyond what fair use would allow in any case). For example, I have made a number of posts here on LAW.SE. In several,of those I quoted sections from one of the numbers of The Federalist. That 19th century work is in the public domain. Anyone else may re-quote the passages I quoted from it. But that gives them no rights to use the rest of my work, except as the CC-BY-SA license or fair use permits. So the author would retain copyright on the book as a whole. But soemoen who merely quotes or uses the translated 19th century article but none of the original parts of the book would not be infringing that copyright. I say probably in the header, because I do not have any actual case-law to cite here. It is possible that some court has rules otherwise on the subject of the copyright on the output of a software tool, but I strongly doubt it.
Apparently not The full text of the license is not included on the page you link to, or on any linked page that I checked. But the FAQ says: free educational licenses can be used strictly for non-commercial educational purposes (including academic research). Exactly how this company defines &quot;non-commercial educational purposes&quot; is not stated. If work is done on a student project, and after a non-student license is purchased that project is commercialized, would the license have been violated, and if so, would the company be likely to sue? The fist question cannot be answered without the full text of the license, and the second would require reading the minds of the company officials. But it seems reasonably clear that this is not what the company has in mind. Another user has pointed out a link to the actual license terms which I failed to note. Section 3.1 of the license says, in relevant part: ... JetBrains grants You a non-exclusive and non-transferable right to use each Product covered by the Toolbox Subscription for non-commercial, educational purposes only (including conducting academic research or providing educational services) ... This would seem to confirm what the FAQ quoted above says. It is hard to see how any development intended as an eventual commercial product would be covered under such a license term. It would appear that a regular non-student license would be needed for such use.
What a lovely question! US Copyright law is clear: the author of a creative work owns the copyright unless it is work for hire. In this instance, the photographer is not doing work for hire so they own the copyright. However, the photographer does not own a copy of the photograph – that is owned by the owner of the camera. The photographer cannot demand that they give him a copy but the parties can agree on such a transfer on whatever terms they like. As the owner of a “physical” copy they can do what they like with that copy but they cannot duplicate it except as fair use or as licensed. They could sell the memory card to whomever they like but the new owner couldn’t copy it either so it would seriously limit publication. Similarly they could move the file provided there was only one copy. Arguably, they could make a print of it providing they deleted the electronic version without copyright violation. Which brings us to who owns the copyright now. The camera owner can argue that the photographer has gifted the copyright to them. This is quite a strong argument as the parties' intentions at the time of arranging the taking of the photograph is that the photographer would have no further interest in it – after all he probably doesn’t want to hang a photo of some strangers on his wall. However, in many jurisdictions, including the united-states, copyright transfers must be in writing. As a fallback position the camera owner can argue there is an implicit license given even if copyright was not transferred. The scope of the license then becomes an issue. It is probably indisputable that the license is perpetual and royalty free. What is arguable is if the license allows commercial exploitation or only personal use. This is where the battle lines would be drawn and I don’t know how it would play out. Other jurisdictions are different For example, in Australia, copyright in a photo commissioned “for valuable consideration” for a “private or domestic purpose” vests in the commissioning party, not the photographer; even though this is not work for hire by an employee. For the circumstances you describe, the purpose is “private or domestic” but there is no “valuable consideration” so the photographer owns the copyright in this case. However, if there was an agreement to “pay” the photographer (even one as simple as “I’ll take your family photo if you’ll take mine”) then the person who asked for the photo to be taken owns the copyright.
Copyright Prominent at the bottom of the page is: © RealClearPolitics 2015 This is nice because it tells you who you have to approach for a licence. If it wasn't there the material would still be copyright you just wouldn't know who owned the copyright. Questions So: If I'm looking to build an app or write a book and I wish to use statistics, am I allowed to basically use their numbers as long as I cite where it is coming from? No, unless what you do constitutes fair use and I don't think it does. If I do make a profit from it, do I owe any royalties to the original scientists/surveyers? No, but you would owe whatever licence fee you negotiated with the copyright holder, ostensibly RealClearPolitics. Must I ask them for permission? Yes, unless you are OK with running the risk of being sued. Commentary I see books reference hundreds of studies all the time This is because they are generally protected by Academic Fair Use public polls should be open information to everyone The only public poll that I know of is an election and that information is available. What you are looking at is a private poll commissioned by and paid for by RealClearPolitics and it is their intellectual property; why should that "be open information to everyone"? commercial interests may be legally entangling Always