Am I allowed to use images from sites like Pixabay in my YouTube videos? If a person has a YouTube channel where that person displays their original music, and the channel is monetized (that is, the channel owner is making money from ads), is the channel owner allowed to put pictures in the videos from sites like Pixabay, Flickr, etc?
As far as copyright goes... Pixabay: Yes (with minor exceptions) Pixabay's license is quite broad, and allows for unattributed commercial use with a small number of exceptions. You can't &quot;use images with identifiable brands to create a misleading association with a product or service&quot; or &quot;portray identifiable people in a bad light or in a way that is offensive,&quot; but otherwise it would allow for use in a video (there are other exceptions, but they wouldn't really apply to such use). Flickr: It depends on the license By default, images are not licensed for additional use other than viewing on Flickr. However, users are free to license their images as they wish, and Flickr explicitly supports various Creative Commons Licenses, many (but not all—particularly the NC licenses) of which would support such commercial use. Depending on the license, additional requirements, such as providing attribution, may apply. Note that there are non-copyright concerns that might come up in specific situations, such as trademarks (I mentioned one potential issue in my explanation of the Pixabay license) or model releases. Another answer to this question has some good information on these concerns.
You're talking about sites like Youtube, so I'll focus on that. That quote, which you bolded, was over-simplified. The actual law is 17 USC 512 (c) Information Residing on Systems or Networks At Direction of Users. (1) In general. A service provider shall not be liable for monetary relief, or, except as provided in subsection (j), for injunctive or other equitable relief, for infringement of copyright by reason of the storage at the direction of a user of material that resides on a system or network controlled or operated by or for the service provider, if the service provider (A) -- (I) does not have actual knowledge that the material or an activity using the material on the system or network is infringing; -- (ii) in the absence of such actual knowledge, is not aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent; or -- (iii) upon obtaining such knowledge or awareness, acts expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material; (B) does not receive a financial benefit directly attributable to the infringing activity, in a case in which the service provider has the right and ability to control such activity; and (C says and complies with a DMCA takedown notice). What you're talking about is membership fees (e.g. Youtube Premium)... or general advertisements that would be placed on any video without awareness of it being infringing. That does not violate Safe Harbor per se. At least not on a legitimate site which is dominated by legitimate content and makes an honest, credible effort to keep it that way. The important clause in (B) is &quot;In a case...&quot; Under (B), they lack the ability to control each activity (upload or view). Youtube's inability is due to receiving 500 hours (30,000 minutes) of uploaded video every minute, obviously requiring 30,000++ staff seats working 24x7 to curate. That would amount to about 200,000 staff - all of Google is around 50,000 right now. Even if a small site were able to moderate all content, they might still have a Safe Harbor defense if they could credibly say that they did not know the material was infringing. If someone created a &quot;Juan Brown&quot; username and uploaded blancolirio's videos from YouTube, they could say &quot;we did not know that was not the real person&quot;. But if the video started with an HBO splash screen and tones, then heck no. But non-moderation is not an airtight defense. When sites are neglectful toward removal, they can soon develop a reputation as a haven for such infringing content - which the sites tend to embrace, since it brings many customers! This was the undoing of several music sharing sites in the 00's, since this awareness of their reputation, plus a lack of diligent removal, failed them on all three arms of 1(A) above. Remember that a competently run website that relies on user submissions is well aware of the DMCA and its case law, and has tailored its rules and enforcement to make it easy to defend a copyright claim. For instance, in the case of music, Youtube uses some human intervention but largely automated means to either take it down and give the uploader a copyright &quot;strike&quot; leading to a ban (which alienates their biggest contributors, especially when a popular Youtuber like blancolirio winds up with a distant car stereo in background noise, remember the detection is by &quot;bot&quot; and no human ever sanity-checks it). de-monetize the suspect video (uploader gets nothing, but, neither does YouTube). monetize it, but give the revenue stream to the rights holder due to an agreement with them. The last one is Youtube's preference with regards to music. As this was vastly easier, more practical and better for the community all-around, allowing whole classes of content to be created that would be prima-facie illegal otherwise. And it's content people are already creating and Youtube can't stop them, so it solves a big policing problem too.
Video would not be transformed in any way, and discussion would take place on reddit or other discussion platforms. So you are copying someone else's video and reposting it verbatim and in full in vimeo, without adding any additional content of your own? What is even the need for it? If you want to discuss the video in Reddit or similar, you can link to the original video instead of your copy. The usual way that fair use is used is when you include the relevants parts of the work being criticized as part of your video. There are other points to take into consideration; IP lawsuits are very specific of the details of the works involved (for examples it could be easier to consider fair use the inclusion of the full original work if it were a short one that if it were a long one) so it is difficult to give an absolute "yes" or "no" answer. But what you attempt to do seems highly problematic. If your argument were valid, what would prevent me from setting an URL to download the latest Hollywood blockbuster because I am commenting about it on Reddit? Imagine that I start selling copies of "The Avengers XXII: A day at the Park"1 adding just a note at the end saying "I like this movie, but they played frisbee a lot too much" as opinion/commentary/criticism... do you think that it would qualify as "fair use"?2 Coupled with the fact that it seems that copying the video seems not necessary for commenting on it (again, just link to the source) I would consider more prudent3 not copying it. 1Well, technically I would say that I were selling my opinion (which is perfectly legal), with the film included only as "fair use" to provide context to my opinion. 2Answer: No, it would not. 3I am not a lawyer, I am not your lawyer, and this site does not provide legal advice.
No. Copyright does not have exemptions for obsolete works, use with credit, or non-commercial use. Depending on the purpose for the distribution, this could be fair use, but it is unlikely that a court will consider this fair use when the only reason is for other people to be able to play games. Perhaps you could try contacting Adobe; it's possible that they will give you a license to distribute the Flash Player. This isn't directly relevant to the legal aspect of copying Adobe's Flash Play, but to answer the underlying issue of legally playing Flash games, perhaps you/others could try Gnash, a libre reimplementation of Flash. I have not used it, but apparently Gnash can run some Flash software without using Adobe's player.
THE FOLLOWING OPINION IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE Based on your screenshot and description, I don't see anything infringing. If the data you are using is from your own sources, and what you show is not a scan or photo of their guide, and your layout is thus unique in specifics (not a direct copy), it wouldn't be an "infringement" as far as copyright law is concerned. Things you cannot copyright: A font (except as a computer font file but not as used in a document). A concept (a main issue here). A idea for a "way" or "order" to display data. Mere data or facts can not be copyrighted nor can ideas. Anything sourced from the US government (trail data, topos, etc.) Something not in printed, physical, or recorded form. That is, the copyright only extends to those things as they are realized in print, or as a recording for audio or video, or a physical statute, etc. A live performance is not copyrightable for instance, nor are ideas. The Law: In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work. For instance, an icon of a TENT is the common form (like a font) of indicating a camp ground. They may be able to copyright the specific instance of their tent icon, but they cannot prevent you from using some other triangle to represent a tent for a campground. And in facts yours is completely different. Displaying data a particular "way" like 1e for 1 mile east is not copyrightable when it is common for the type of guide. It's just data. CONCEPTS AND DATA ARE NOT COPYRIGHTABLE, only the ACTUAL specific page or work in total as rendered. More below, but your page seems totally different. OTHER FORMS OF IP PROTECTION Now, just because some intellectual property can't be protected by copyright, does not mean it is a free-for-all. For instance, a "way" of doing something can be PATENTED (process patent). And "ornamental design" can be given a design patent. A logo or brand name can be given a trademark. Here's an interesting court ruling on the subject of data display. Basically it can't be an abstraction/concept. It has to be in a definable, physical, novel form. NOTE: it has been possible to copyright a "look and feel" but that applies to software, not static printed media. And the courts have been reversing on that a lot as time goes on. BUT WAIT...THERE'S MORE So, I am going to GUESS that you are talking about AT Guide by David Miller? It's pretty rich of him to claim copyright over the "manner of the display of data" when APPARENTLY he is using concepts of data display as described by EDWARD TUFT So, LOL. Is this the guide they claim you are "copying"?? THESE AREN'T THE ICONS YOU'RE LOOKING FOR Okay, so let's go one by one and their claims against you: 1. The way of representing distances between shelters "The Way" of presenting something is not copyrightable, only an expressive or final form. Some forms of "organization or selection" that may make a work in total copyrightable, but not on their own in isolation. 2. The sideways orientation of the elevation profile Presenting some elements "sideways" is not copyrightable (WTF LOL OMG RUS) the same as number 1. Turning an element sideways does not, on it's own, rise to the level of "creative or non-obvious." 3. The icons Your icons are completely different. If you copied and used his ACTUAL icons, you might have had some issue, but your icons are not even remotely the same. Using icons to indicate services or features is COMMON. Not copyrightable. http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/works-not-covered-copyright In general, copyright does not protect individual words, short phrases, and slogans; familiar symbols or designs; or mere variations of typographic ornamentation, lettering, or coloring; mere listings of ingredients or contents. (However, copyright protection may be available, if the artwork of the symbol or design contains sufficient creativity.) 4. The convention of representing direction/distance for waypoints. Again, "The Way" of doing something is not copyrightable, nor is data or facts. 1.1E or 2.3NW are common are they not? I've seen similar treatments elsewhere. It's "obvious and not novel." FINAL FORM, EXPRESSIVE FORM is copyrightable NOT FORMATTING CONCEPTS. Basically, he is saying something along the lines of "I'm formatting paragraphs with a double space, so you can't." The "actual" icon drawings he used are copyrightable. Your icons are clearly different. I assume your mountain-top profile line is taken from some publicly available survey source? So long as you never used a scan of the actual line he uses (and even then?), because he cannot copyright the mountain top profiles themselves! DOES HE EVEN HAVE A VALID COPYRIGHT? For that question, I'd say yes with limitations. His work is a compilation of data. Data can not be copyrighted, but the unique arrangement can in context of the work in total. These three conditions must ALL be present (from http://www.rbs2.com/ccompile.pdf): The collection and assembly of pre-existing material, facts, or data. The selection, coordination, or arrangement of those materials The creation, by virtue of the particular selection, coordination, or arrangement of an original work of authorship. So It seem to be that his guide meets these, but his copyright is for his work in total. You are NOT using his data. You are using your OWN data. Based on my reading of Key vs Chinatown Today you are not even close to infringing. You are doing your OWN selection, and your OWN arrangement. It does not matter that you may be using some similar typographic or charting conventions. Those cannot be copyrighted. You are doing your own thing, and "similarity is not infringement." SEARCH AND YOU WILL FIND On the subject of the copyright, here's the copyright on AT guide: https://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?Search_Arg=A.T.+Guide&amp;Search_Code=TALL&amp;PID=FgMjtJ244OxoFULrVoob_CEI8bc_M&amp;SEQ=20190506230418&amp;CNT=25&amp;HIST=1 If the link doesn't work due to expiration or a cookie, it should look like this: It's a matter of using the USPTO search engine "its way" — it's not Google and requires specific search strings. Looks like the assignee or owner is https://antigravitygear.com ? Did THEY contact you or David Miller? Or did they claim to be an attorney? I'd love to see the email. Attorneys don't email dunning letters, by the way (though they may if it was a DMCA takedown request I suppose, but I still doubt it.) If it was an attorney it would be via US mail on attorney letterhead. To the best of my knowledge, you can't file proof of service on an email, it has to be USPS or trackable. This means the guy that made the other PDF is annoyed or whatever. If he claimed to be an attorney, that's VERY illegal if he's not. And one final note: Just being non-profit does not absolve you of copyright infringement. But as I said, I see no infringement here. The other answer that asserted these are covered under "works of art" is not withstanding. There is nothing "expressive" about Miller's guide. Also that other answer cited a source for AUSTRALIAN law, not US. Mere typographic elements do not rise to "an expressive work of art". A mountain profile that is nothing but a illustrative line based on data also does not.
Facts cannot be copyrighted. Such a project does not violate copyright law, and if you're in the United States, it is protected by the First Amendment.
It depends on what information you are sharing, how you got it, and what rights the business asserts over the information. For example, if it is content created by the business and they claim copyright protection you can only use it without their permission in accordance with Fair use exceptions. If you obtain the information through some limited/conditional access agreement you would be subject to the terms of that agreement. As always: If you want a legal opinion specific to your use case you need to consult a lawyer in your jurisdiction.
&quot;Personal use only&quot; does not excuse copyright infringement under US law. The uploader does not hold copyright, and neither gives nor denies permission to copy his creation. The law does not require a copyright holder to deny permission, it requires the user to actually obtain permission. So no matter how you slice it (even as fair use) it is infringement for you to copy that video.