Hosting free comics on my website I have paperback comics which I legally bought. I was wondering, if I scanned them into PDFs and uploaded them on my website for people to VIEW for free, not DOWNLOAD, would it be illegal? I'm in the UK, and if it is illegal, is there a way to get around that? Thanks in advance
It would be illegal because only you are allowed to view the comic you purchased. Creating a copy of your comic (e.g photcopying, scanning etc) is not allowed, and showing others a copy of your comic is also not allowed
If the blog author holds the copyright on the ebook, they can distribute the ebook anyway they choose, either via download from Github or elsewhere, or sell it in an online store. They hold the copyright, they alone can decide how to distribute it. If they also sell the ebook in the Microsoft press Store, they may have an agreement with the store to also allow their own free downloads; it's hard to say without knowing the agreement. If there are ebooks on Githb available for viewing or download, the owner of the Github page should hold copyright of the ebook, both 1) for their own protection against copyright infringement, and 2) to not break GitHub's TOS against copright infringement: https://help.github.com/articles/github-terms-of-service/#f-copyright-infringement-and-dmca-policy
No, it is not illegal in UK to use proxies. No, it is not like the tor concept. No, the ISP does not slow you down (they mostly throttle detectable p2p connections), but if you use public proxies, many of them will be unacceptably slow. Note: for things like facebook, a proxy is utterly useless. You already donated your private data to them, there's nothing to hide.
Why would the method by which you transfer a item that has a copyright impact the copyright? You buy a new book at a new bookstore, a used book at a used bookstore, a used book at a garage sale, someone gives you a book, you find a book on the sidewalk, you steal a book from a store, you buy and download an ebook, you give an ebook to someone on a USB stick, you download an ebook via Bittorrent. The author's copyright - as well as the design copyright, and any book company trademarks - does not change in any of those scenarios. Copyright around most of the world - read Berne Convention (Wikipedia) - says that copyright exists at the moment of creation of a work, i.e. a work that you say is "100% yours". This has nothing to do with the way the work may be transmitted or stolen or downloaded. A work in the public domain can still be copyrighted in terms of cover artwork and design, annotations, etc. Read Welcome to the Public Domain - Stanford Copyright and Fair Use Center You can say someone "owns" a book in the sense that they might have paid for it or it is personal property and one could justifiably call it theft if someone took it from them, but "owning" the physical or electronic copy in any sense doesn't mean you own the copyright. Read the copyright notice on a book or ebook; you get a license to read it, not ownership of it. Read What's the difference between Copyright and Licensing? - Open Source Stack Exchange. Sure, the TOS of a network can specify the ownership/licensing status of the files shared on such network. They will almost all explicitly say not to upload or share anything that will violate the copyright of that work. The TOS of a network could possibly say that anything that is uploaded is automatically licensed to them. A network could demand the reassignment of copyright upon upload, but that would have to be outlined in the TOS and is not simple. See Copyright Ownership and Transfers FAQs - Stanford Copyright and Fair Use Center.
Is this legal? Generally yes, unless it unlawfully exceeds the scope of the license. Also, if it is, how can I check if it's permitted by the original store's EULA? Read the whole EULA, focusing on terms related to resale, assignment, and transferability.
This appears to mean that the author, while retaining copyright, is allowing anyone to make copies without asking permission from the author. This would seem to be similar to a CC-BY license, or perhaps more exactly a CC-BY-ND license, as the author has apparently not granted the right to create modified versions or other derivative works. This does not require one who makes such copies to distribute them free of charge, unless there is another provision not mentioned in the question. Amazon, or anyone else, would be free to sell copies at any price they cared to ask. If the author wanted to limit the sales price, that would take another provision, and might not be enforceable.
Words themselves are not protected by copyright. Curated lists of words, however, are (what's protected is the artful collection of words chosen for a purpose). Hence Hasbro owns the copyright in the list of playable words, though it is a matter for future possible litigation to see if the courts agree. If you have permission from the copyright holder, that permission (license) should state how you can use the list (it does not matter if there is a title). However, you may need to obtain the list from the copyright holder. The website operator presumably already has a license, the terms of which may allow them to prevent you from copying from the website. E.g. the author may have granted the website operator the right to use the list as long as they don't restrict redistribution; but that license may also require restricting redistribution. So you also have to study the website terms of use – or get a copy directly from the copyright holder (assuming that that is the original author).
If you own the copyright (because you wrote the book), you can do whatever you want with it. If someone else has the copyright, you have to get their permission to do what you propose. That could be the author, the author's estate, or some other party. It then depends on what the interest of the rights-holder is: they could say "No way!", "Sure, for a payment of $100,000", "At $1 per copy, here is how you must keep track of copies", "Okay, as long as you include this notice that prevents further re-distribution" or "Huh, I never thought of that. Sure, I grant you complete license to do whatever you want". A publisher is relevant only when the publisher requires a transfer of copyright to the publishing company, or if the rights-holder has granted them a certain type of license (e.g. an exclusive license). If the author has granted someone else an exclusive perpetual right to distribute, then they cannot also grant you a license to distribute for free. That is really the author's problem, though, since the publisher doesn't hold the copyright so can't sue you, instead the publisher would sue the author for breach of contract.