Are Soviet movies from the 1970&#39;s copyrighted in United States? I was looking to watch a Soviet movie from the 1970's (Moscow-Cassiopeia, nothing with much communist propaganda, just a teen comedy). I thought that this movie would be only possible to find through torrent sites, but I was surprised to see it for sale on iTunes. Who would be Apple licensing this movie from? There was an embargo against Soviet Union during the 1980's, wouldn't have this disabled any copyright from before this embargo?
The Soviet Union generally had no copyright treaties with the western world before 1973. So, anything before then is public domain. The USSR had a policy of public domain and considered anything published to be the property of the "people", including anything published in the west. Even for works produced after 1973, they would have to be registered for copyright in the United States to claim a copyright here.
You don't say where you are located. Copyright laws are different in different countries, am going to assume US laws. Under US law, a faithful digitization of a book does not get a new copyeight, see Bridgeman Art Library, Ltd. v. Corel Corp., 25 F. Supp. 2d 421 (S.D.N.Y. 1998) and thw Wikipedia article about that case (On the issue of mrequired originality, see also FEIST PUBLICATIONS, INC. v. RURAL TELEPHONE SERVICE COMPANY, INC. (No. 89-1909.) (1991) which dealt with copying a telephone directory.) The court in Bridgeman held that: It is uncontested that Bridgeman's images are substantially exact reproductions of public domain works, albeit in a different medium. The images were copied from the underlying works without any avoidable addition, alteration or transformation. Indeed, Bridgeman strives to reproduce precisely those works of art. ... The mere reproduction of a work of art in a different medium should not constitute the required originality for the reason that no one can claim to have independently evolved any particular medium.'&quot; As discussed above, the law requires &quot;some element of material alteration or embellishment&quot; to the totality of the work. At bottom, the totality of the work is the image itself, and Bridgeman admittedly seeks to duplicate exactly the images of the underlying works. ... [O]ne need not deny the creativity inherent in the art of photography to recognize that a photograph which is no more than a copy of the work of another as exact as science and technology permit lacks originality. That is not to say such a feat is trivial, simply not original. The more persuasive analogy is that of a photocopier. Surely designing the technology to produce exact reproductions of documents required much engineering talent, but that does not make the reproductions copyrightable. The Bridgeman court was actually construing UK law, but the earthlier phase of Bridgeman i and the SCOTUS case of Feist show the same result under UIS law. Note that books and other works published before 1925 are now out of copyright in the US. Copyright can also be lost ion other ways, such as publishing without a copyright notice before the effective date of the 1976 act, and failure to properly renew a work published in the US before 1964. Assuming that the book is not under copyright, neither the library nor anyone else has a US copyright in the PFD. Unless the library imposes some additional restriction by contract, any such PDF may be copied or shared freely. It may even be sold or rented. And the validity of such an additional agreement would be questionable, but since the question does not mention such an agreement, I will not go into that further.
There was a lawsuit Disney v Redbox in 2018 and 2019 about exactly that. It settled. Lawfull masses has 6 videos about the topic. In part, it did lead to Disney altering the ToS of the digital download/streaming site they use to include that you need to own the DVD to be not in violation and to not break the combo pack.
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.
You may be allowed to make a single backup copy, pursuant to 17 USC 117 it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:... (2) that such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful Congress defined "computer program" as a set of statements or instructions to be used directly or indirectly in a computer in order to bring about a certain result. At most, you could make one copy of a given CD, as long as you don't use it except to restore the original if it is damaged. Although data is not typically thought of as a "computer program", the definition of "computer program" given by congress is compatible with the nature of music CDs. It's a somewhat open question whether the courts would decide that the insides of a CD player is a "computer" (it is, with extremely limited abilities), and Congress did not define "computer" for purposes of copyright. There does not appear to be any clear case law testing whether it is legal to make a single backup copy of a music CD, so it is possible that a music CD does not meet the conditions of a "computer program". The RIAA position on the matter about 10 years ago, based on the statement of the RIAA president, was It’s OK to copy music onto an analog cassette (not for commercial purposes), it’s OK to copy music onto special audio CD-Rs, minidisks and digital tapes (but again not for commercial purposes). Beyond that there’s no legal “right” to copy the copyrighted music on a CD onto a CD-R, but burning a copy onto a CD-R or transferring a copy onto a computer hard drive or portable music player won’t usually raise concerns so long as the copy is made from an authorized original CD that you legitimately own and the copy is just for your personal use. However, this does not constitute giving permission by the copyright holder, even if the company distributing the work in question is a member of RIAA. Along these lines, in a document filed with the copyright office on behalf of the industry, pertaining to DMCA rule-making, it is maintained (p. 39) that "The making of back up copies for personal use has never been held to be a per se noninfringing use", and "As the Register made clear in her 2003 Recommendation, “it is not permissible to classify a work by reference to the type of user or use.”" (you can't just say "backup" and gain a fair-use defense). In other words, it's not clearly legal, and it's not clearly illegal. Clarity would come if a person was sued for making a backup copy of music CDs (with no muddying of the issue, such as "and then selling it"). For non-legal reasons, it is unlikely that a case law test will emerge.
I don't think it's in the public domain. It is true that "works of the United States Government" cannot be copyrighted (17 USC 105). However, "work of the United States Government" is defined as a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person’s official duties. (17 USC 101) The pool photographer isn't an officer or employee of the United States Government; he works for the New York Times. The satire question is separate and I don't know the answer to that.
Their code, their rules A copyright holder is free to offer their work under none, one or many licences. They can, at the same time, use their own work however they see fit without regard to the licences they have given/sold to others (except, they can only give one person an exclusive licence). As an analogy, let’s say I own a fleet of cars. I can drive my cars anytime I want. I can let Jim drive my cars anytime he wants for free. I can let Mary drive a specific car on Thursdays and only within 10km of the depot. I can let Joe drive my cars providing he pays me $50 a day. And I’m not going to let Fred drive them at all because Fred’s a jerk. Each of those is a different licence.
Yet I publicly wear shirts with copyrighted designs all the time. I'm unclear about this; do you mean T-shirts you have made yourself using copyrighted images or T-shirts you have bought? If the former then it is a prima facie breach and you could be sued by the copyright holder. You would probably not be as it would be impracticable. If the latter then there are 2 possibilities: The manufacturer/distributer/retailer chain all hold valid licences to put the image on a T-shirt and display it in the usual way so there is no breach involved. The manufacturer/distributer/retailer chain does not hold a valid licence in which case there is a breach and the copyright holder would target, say Wall-Mart rather than you. what about displaying ... works of art in my yard? Notwithstanding that it can be viewed from a public space, your yard is not public; therefore this is not public display.