Does using some software for research (intended for publication) count as &quot;public performance&quot;? A specific example is section 2.1.3 of the NVIDIA license agreement: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/geforce-license/, from which I quote: No Sublicensing or Distribution. Customer may not sell, rent, sublicense, distribute or transfer the SOFTWARE; or use the SOFTWARE for public performance or broadcast; or provide commercial hosting services with the SOFTWARE. So what does it mean for some software to be used for &quot;public performance&quot;? Hypothetically, say I want to publish a research paper, and I use an NVIDIA GPU to obtain data/results (e.g. training neural networks), and put that data in my paper. Does this count as public performance and violate this agreement?
&quot;public performance&quot; is a term used in copyright law mostly for music, dance, drama, and audio-visual works, where it means to actually perform the work in front of an audience. For a book it could mean to read the book aloud in front of an audience. It is not largely used for software. I suppose that demonstrating or running the software in front of an audience would be a public performance. Running the software and using its output in a publication would not be a &quot;public performance&quot; as I understand it. As long as the user has the right to access the software, which normally includes the right to run it, the output may be used with no further or special permission.
Interesting that they don't give a source and also don't link to anywhere (such as Wikimedia commons). So I assume that content is google's own. So generally speaking: No, when no license is provided, that means you can't use whatever it is in a project of yours (whether commercially or not), because the &quot;default&quot;, when nothing is specified, is that no license is given. So unless you find a license that grants you a permission on google's own content, these sounds can't be used freely.
You can't patent an algorithm, but I'll assume you are talking about the case where you have patented a machine or process that uses an algorithm, but that adds significantly more, and that the software being distributed implements much of this process. Courts might find an implied licence or promissory estoppel when distributing software under an open source licence that doesn't explicitly exclude patent licencing as part of its terms. It would be prudent to state your patent rights and explicitly exclude a patent licence if you intend to enforce your patent rights. As an example, this software implicates a patent , so they allow "permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its documentation for educational, research, and non-commercial" purposes. Users that want to use the software commercially need to contact the authors who also happen to be the patent owners, and I assume would negotiate a patent licence at that point.
If you develop a program yourself and it wasn't a work made for hire, then the program is yours to do with as you please. You hold the copyright to it. Many developers choose existing licencing arrangements or they can choose to create a license on their own, or using an attorney. And sometimes they choose to release their programs into the public domain. If you release it into the public domain, you are essentially giving up your copyright. The IDE (Integrated Development Environment) you used to develop your program does not dictate what licenses you can use. There are some existing licenses that others use (which you are free to use or NOT to use) give varying protections to you regarding what you are allowing others to do; right of others to copy, right of others to modify, right of others to distribute, rights to sub-licence, and so on. One of the licensing schemes is the GNU General Public License (GPL). But there are many others, too many to list here.
You can't, in general, know whether a distributor of a work has permission to distribute, or is a pirate site. I verified that they have posted an illegal copy of a work that I created, and I know that I did not grant permission to them (or anyone) to infringe my copyright. Both hosting and downloading works without permission is a violation of copyright law, so both parties are liable. Downloaders may erroneously rely on the "I didn't know!" defense, which in the US carries no legal weight. Even so, if you download my book, it will probably cost me vastly more to sue you for infringement than the damages that I might be awarded over your infringement. Usually, copyright holders go after the pirate sites, and only rarely go after particularly egregious serial downloaders.
The question that you need to answer is whether, when you embed, you "copy, reproduce, distribute, transmit, broadcast, display, sell, license, or otherwise exploit any Content". It seems that you have done that, i.e. you didn't just "watch". The next question is whether you have "prior written consent of YouTube". Youtube requires a license from contributors granting users the right to "access your Content through the Service, and to use, reproduce, distribute, display and perform such Content as permitted through the functionality of the Service and under these Terms of Service". To fill the gap, you have to determine whether your act of embedding is permitted by the Youtube TOS. Their TOS states §2A that "The Service" includes the YouTube "Embeddable Player". It also says §4 YouTube hereby grants you permission to access and use the Service as set forth in these Terms of Service, provided that: (A) You agree not to distribute in any medium any part of the Service or the Content without YouTube's prior written authorization, unless YouTube makes available the means for such distribution through functionality offered by the Service (such as the Embeddable Player). On the face of it and as long as you do the stuff that follows in B-I, you have complied with that requirement and therefore you have written permission from Youtube.
Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer. This advice may be materially inaccurate. What does redistribution mean? Redistribution means you have somehow caused the software to make its way to another person. Things that probably count as distribution: Placing the file on a public website. Printing the binary in hex onto paper and giving that paper to someone else. Putting the file onto a USB drive and handing it to someone. Putting the file onto your own computer, then giving that computer to someone else. Putting the file onto a shared network drive. Things that probably don't count as distribution: Copying the files onto your own computer(s) Compiling the program Placing the program on your phone. Printing out the source code on paper, but not sharing it. As a practical matter, I recommend ensuring that BSD license accompanies any instances of the software, even if you don't intend to distribute those instances. If you don't distribute it, then nobody will see it. If you &quot;inadvertently&quot; distribute the software, then including the license means you are in compliance. Should you include the license in the exe or in the same folder: The specific clause is: Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. Including the license in the exe (e.g., via some sort of credits menu) is typically fine. I'll note that this is the approach used by Chrome (help-&gt;about chrome has a link to &quot;other open source software&quot; which includes these licenses). This approach works well for software which makes use of an installer, since users probably won't be looking in the install folder. Including the license in the folder adjacent to the exe is also typically fine. If your application does not have an install process (e.g., installed via xcopy deployment), then this approach works well, since users will easily be able to find the license. If your software is sold in a physical box, then printing out the license and including that license inside the box also works. What if I violate the license by not including the BSD terms? If you violate the license, you are subject to a lawsuit for copyright violation. What happens next depends on how the copyright owners wishes to proceed: Some copyright owners will sue. The actual results/penalties for such a violation will depend on a variety of factors. Some copyright owners will ask you to comply with the license. If you respond by apologizing and then complying, that's as far as it will go. Some copyright owners will ask you for money (with threat of lawsuit). I would expect this result if the copyright owners offers a dual-licensing scheme (i.e., where you can pay the copyright owner to exclude the acknowledgement).
All the CC licenses permit anyone to use the licensed content, and to make copies of it for others. Some of them permit using it for commercial purposes, others (the ones including the -NC- clause) do not. Some CC licenses permit creating modified versions of the original work (derivative works), others (the ones including the -ND- clause) do not. I do not know of any standard license which allows users to create and distribute derivative works, but not to distribute the original. The license used by Project Gutenberg permits re-use and re-distribution, but if a fee is charged beyond recouping expenses requires the removal of the PG name and logo. One problem is that if derivative works are allowed, this would include works which are only trivial modifications to the original, which would have the effect of allowing distribution of the original. If the main concern is about commercial sales, possibly a CC-NC-SA license would effectively serve the purpose? That allows redistribution, including of derivative works, but forbids commercial reuse or distribution without separate permission, and requires all redistribution to be under the same license. Otherwise a new license for this situation might have to be created. It is often a good idea to have the assistance of a lawyer with IP expertise in creating a new license, or the wording chosen may have unexpected effects or include unintended contradictions. Or one could simply place a basic copyright notice along with text such as "Modified versions may be created only with permission from the author. Request permission at work-permisisons@example.com". However, if the work proves popular, there might be a large volume of requests.