Is the Scarborough Fair Melody Really in the Public Domain? According to Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarborough-Fair-Melody.png the melody to the tune Scarborough Fair (which had been popularized in the 1960s by Simon and Garfunkel) is in the public domain. Is this claim correct; and if so, can someone today write a new set of lyrics to accompany the basis of the said melody, and publish it?
Yes Both melody and lyrics source back to the middle ages, as for instance described here. The difficulty could be to make sure you rely your derived work on a variant that is really in the public domain. E.g. if you use notes or lyrics from the Simon &amp; Garfunkel version and derive from there, you might violate their copyright.
If users were to copy dictionary definitions, for instance Oxford or Cambridge) and make the word lists public, is it a copyright infringement? If the dictionary entries are protected by copyright then your user has infringed that copyright by posting the dictionary entries. Am I responsible for this activity? No. But you may be responsible for removing it if you get a request. Can dictionary owners charge me against copyright issue? If you follow the procedures outlines in the DMCA you can be protected from liability.
A GPS trace of a car's path, on its own, is unlikely to be covered by copyright in the first place. It is primarily made up of facts (the locations of roads and lanes), and there is no creativity involved in its creation. A database of facts may be protected by copyright as a compilation if there is some amount of creativity in how it is assembled, but this does not extend any protection to the individual contents of the database (cf. Feist v. Rural).
Please Note: This was written before the title change of this question and may no longer be applicable According to the Harvard website: In Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co. 499 US 340 (1991) the United States Supreme Court held that copyright does not extend to a mere compilation of facts. In this case, it was a telephone directory much the same as the one in ProCD v. Zeidenberg 86 F.3d 1447 (7th Cir. 1996). Furthermore, the Court also ruled that something more than simple "sweat of the brow" labor was required before copyright protection would ensue, with some modicum of authorial originality necessary. Accordingly, it was held in Feist that copyright did not extend to a telephone directory, no matter how laborious a task its compilation was. The decision in ProCD v. Zeidenberg 86 F. 3d 1447 (7th Cir. 1996) is highly significant, therefore, in that it permits copyright or quasi-copyright protection to be extended to non-copyrightable material through the use of contract. One would have to consider each meta tag independently. For example, the "description" tag could by copyrightable since it is written for more than just the 'facts', such as a subtle advert for the site that is more than an objective description. However the 'og:type' would not be copyrightable since it would just be considered a fact. Now, if you are using it on another website and sourcing it properly, you could probably use it under "Fair Use" Uses That Are Generally Fair Uses Subject to some general limitations discussed later in this article, the following types of uses are usually deemed fair uses: Criticism and comment -- for example, quoting or excerpting a work in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment. News reporting -- for example, summarizing an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report. Research and scholarship -- for example, quoting a short passage in a scholarly, scientific, or technical work for illustration or clarification of the author's observations. Nonprofit educational uses -- for example, photocopying of limited portions of written works by teachers for classroom use. Parody -- that is, a work that ridicules another, usually well-known, work by imitating it in a comic way. A copyright would exist on the image. One would have to know what license currently applies to the image to know for sure, however, the "Fair Use" to copyright would still apply. With Fair Use, the entity type that uses the image is important. There is much more leniency when a non-profit uses copyrighted information than when the information is used in commercial activity. (With, of course, more exceptions.)
Apparently Such Files May be Distributes or Sold Section 5.e of the Google APIs Terms of Service reads: e. Prohibitions on Content Unless expressly permitted by the content owner or by applicable law, you will not, and will not permit your end users or others acting on your behalf to, do the following with content returned from the APIs: Scrape, build databases, or otherwise create permanent copies of such content, or keep cached copies longer than permitted by the cache header; Copy, translate, modify, create a derivative work of, sell, lease, lend, convey, distribute, publicly display, or sublicense to any third party; Misrepresent the source or ownership; or Remove, obscure, or alter any copyright, trademark, or other proprietary rights notices; or falsify or delete any author attributions, legal notices, or other labels of the origin or source of material It might seem that 5.e.2 prohibits the suggested use. But if the text is in fact in the public domain,&quot;applicable law&quot; (that is, copyright law) permits you, or anyone, to &quot;Copy, translate, modify, create a derivative work of&quot; or otherwise use the content. Thus 5.e.2 does not apply. Points 3 and 4 would seem to indicate that the source, including title and author information, must be included or preserved in the output files, but seems to be the only relevant restriction that applies. Response to Comment A comment by user Brian Drake questions the theory of this answer, stating: The most you can say is that copyright law does not prohibit certain conduct (and even that is not clear: just because the text is in the public domain does not necessarily mean that the audio is in the public domain); this does not mean that copyright law expressly permits that conduct. US Copyright law does not define what constitutes the public domain. Rather it defines what is protected by copyright, and specifies some cases in whch a work is not protected. (For nexample, 17 USC 105 provides tht works of the US Federal Government are not protected.) Anything not included in the protection of copyright is in the public domain. This has been confirmed by many cour cases and legal writings. Law generally follows the rule &quot;Anything not forbidden is allowed.&quot; Audio as Derivitive Work An audio recording of a person reading a text aloud would be a derivative work of that text, and would normally have its own copyright, if created lawfully. (If the recording was of a text protected by copyright, made without permission and outside of fair use, it was not made lawfully and the infringer has no copyright in the recording at all.) But US courts have held that a work created by a mechanical or automatic process, including many computer programs, is not an &quot;original work of authorship&quot; and thus is not protected by copyright at all, and is thus in the Public Domain. The case of the &quot;Monkey Selfie&quot; is on point. (&quot;Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices, § 313.2&quot; (PDF). United States Copyright Office. 22 December 2014. p. 22. &quot;To qualify as a work of 'authorship' a work must be created by a human being.... Works that do not satisfy this requirement are not copyrightable. The Office will not register works produced by nature, animals, or plants.&quot; Moreover, if the audio were protected by copyright, it would presumably be owned by the person who ran the program, and 17 USC 106 specifically grants the copyright owner permission to distribute copies. Sources The Wikipedia article &quot;Public Domain&quot; reads in relevant part (citations omitted): The public domain consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired,[1] been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. ... As rights vary by country and jurisdiction, a work may be subject to rights in one country and be in the public domain in another. Some rights depend on registrations on a country-by-country basis, and the absence of registration in a particular country, if required, gives rise to public-domain status for a work in that country. ... Definitions of the boundaries of the public domain in relation to copyright, or intellectual property more generally, regard the public domain as a negative space; that is, it consists of works that are no longer in copyright term or were never protected by copyright law. According to James Boyle this definition underlines common usage of the term public domain and equates the public domain to public property and works in copyright to private property. However, the usage of the term public domain can be more granular, including for example uses of works in copyright permitted by copyright exceptions. Such a definition regards work in copyright as private property subject to fair-use rights and limitation on ownership *&quot;How Can I Use Copyright-Free Works (in the Public Domain)?&quot; by Nolo Press reads: Copyright law gives creators certain exclusive rights. These rights include the exclusive ability to copy, distribute, and perform the copyrighted work. But copyright is not infinite. Rather, it provides copyright holders with protections for a limited duration. When a work becomes available for use without permission from a copyright owner, it is said to be &quot;in the public domain.&quot; Most works enter the public domain because their copyrights have expired. The Legal Information Institute (LII) article &quot;public domain&quot; reads: The public domain includes every creative work that is no longer protected by a copyright, trademark, or patent. Creative works that are no longer protected are owned by the general public rather than the original creator. As such, the work is free to be copied, performed, or otherwise used by anyone. &quot;Copyright and Scholarship: Public Domain&quot; from Boston College Libraries reads in relevant part: &quot;Public domain&quot; works are not protected by copyright. The public owns these works, not an individual author or artist. Anyone can use a public domain work without obtaining permission, but no one can ever own it. An important caveat regarding public domain material is that collections, new editions, and derivative works of public domain material may all be protected by copyright. With collections, an author could collect public domain works in a book or display them on a website, and the collection as a whole could be protected by copyright, even though individual works within it are not. *&quot;Welcome to the Public Domain&quot; (Stanford libraries) reads in relevant part: The term “public domain” refers to creative materials that are not protected by intellectual property laws such as copyright, trademark, or patent laws. The public owns these works, not an individual author or artist. Anyone can use a public domain work without obtaining permission, but no one can ever own it. Wikipedia article &quot;Monkey selfie copyright dispute&quot; *&quot;A macaque monkey who took now-famous selfie photographs cannot be declared the copyright owner of the photos&quot; (AP) reads in relevant part: A macaque monkey who took now-famous selfie photographs cannot be declared the copyright owner of the photos, a federal judge said Wednesday. U.S. District Judge William Orrick said in federal court in San Francisco that &quot;while Congress and the president can extend the protection of law to animals as well as humans, there is no indication that they did so in the Copyright Act.&quot; *NARUTO, a Crested Macaque, by and through his Next Friends, People forthe Ethical Treatment of Animals, Inc., v. DAVID JOHN SLATER; BLURB, INC., ; WILDLIFE PERSONALITIES, LTD.&quot; (Ninth Circuit full opinion April 23, 2018 No. 16-15469, D.C. No. 3:15-cv-04324-WHO) reads in part: We must determine whether a monkey may sue humans, corporations, and companies for damages and injunctive relief arising from claims of copyright infringement. Our court’s precedent requires us to conclude that the monkey’s claim has standing under Article III of the United States Constitution. Nonetheless, we conclude that this monkey—and all animals, since they are not human—lacks statutory standing under the Copyright Act. We therefore affirm the judgment of the district court
The burden rests on A to determine that the work is not protected by copyright, and there is no fool-proof registry where you can look up a particular work. One form of proof would be finding a copy of the song published in the 18th century. It might be possible to establish that the work is no longer protected using expert testimony (e.g. a musicologist who could establish that the song existed at some early point in time). As an example, the song &quot;Misirlou&quot; was registered in the US by Nikos Roubanis in 1941, though the song was already in existence in the 1920's, and there was no legal challenge to his copyright. From the legal perspective, that is who has the copyright, except in Greece where copyright is shared with Michalis Patrinos. One might be able to challenge a copyright registration if it is proven that the song could not have been composed by the registrant (establishing via manuscript evidence that it was written 100 years earlier). There is no way to advance-test the legal strength of your evidence that the song was created long enough ago, and if a work is registered, that makes the job even harder.
As the question says the "Fugue in A Major" by Shostakovich is not in the public domain. The work was published in 1950, and so would not be PD under US law, and Shostakovich died in 1975, and so his works would not be PD in countries using a life+50, life+70, or longer term. Therefore, simply "making some changes" would be the creation of a derivative work and would be copyright infringement in and of itself, even if that work was not published or distributed. If a relatively short segment of the fuge was used, it might be considered a "fair use" under US copyright law, or perhaps a "fair dealing " in the laws of those countries that recognize this exception to copyright. But that is a very fact-intensive determination; it depends on the amount used, the manner and purpose for which it is used, and the harm, if any, to the market for the original work. One can never be absolutely sure that a use is a fair use until a court rules that it is. A two minute excerpt is fairly substantial, and might well not be held to be a fair use. Of course, you could seek permission from the Shostakovich estate (or whoever owns the copyright on the fugue). They might or might not grant it, and might or might not demand a fee. (As another answers mentions, there may be some question if the works of Shostakovich are protected by copyright under US law.)
As the quote in your question notes (albeit in contrapositive form), Asimov's fiction may be made legally available for free download on the net with the permission of his estate. It is either that case that Princeton University's physics department (or whatever individual person or agency put up the story online) has obtained permission from Asimov's estate to distribute the story on their website, or they simply distribute it without legal permission, and Asimov's estate has not taken legal action to have it removed, which they may or may not choose to do in the future. Consider also that the Princeton distribution does not appear to have been meant to be in any way public: looking one directory level up (Princeton University Physics 115A and B: Physics for Future Leaders) shows a course overview with syllabus and lecture notes, without any apparent link to the story. Probably, it was put online for use exclusively by students taking that particular class, and the professor(s) just didn't put any controls to stop it from being accessible to anyone who knew the URL. This doesn't really change that fact that its public accessibility is, strictly speaking, copyright infringement, but it may be a favorable factor toward a finding that distribution outside of the class was innocent infringement, which can lessen (or, rarely, nullify) the penalty. (And it may be quite possible that distribution within the class was defensible under fair use/dealing, which considers educational context as a favorable factor.)