Why can you use the font “Helvetica” for free in LaTeX although it would otherwise be required to pay a fee? When looking for the Helvetica font, it usually costs you a certain amount of money because it is not a free font. But when I am using the free open source software LaTeX, I can use the font wherever I want. But I cannot, for example, use it when writing documents in Word or OpenOffice. Why is that? What kind of “special deal” or treatment is this?
Font shapes are not legally protected, whereas font names are. As such, one can make copies of fonts and give them new names. Helvetica is one of the 'base' fonts included in PostScript printers. This made having a 'desktop' version very desirable. Some years ago, the font foundry URW made their Helvetic clone (Nimbus Sans) available under an open license. This allowed the font files to be included in open source software distributions, including LaTeX set ups, with no fee or legal restrictions. Subsequently, these font files have been used as the basis for the 'TeX Gyre' fonts: see http://www.gust.org.pl/projects/e-foundry/tex-gyre for the fonts and https://www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb27-2/tb87hagen-gyre.pdf for background. The TeX Gyre fonts are available in OpenType format, and so can be used with (for example) OpenOffice (technically and legally). Note that these fonts are 'metric compatible' with the 'parents', i.e. they can be used directly as replacements for Helvetica, etc. with no change to the appearance of documents.
I assume you are talking about United States federal copyright law. You can freely use any: material published before 1923 material published between 1923 and 1963 for which the copyright was not renewed material explicitly placed in the public domain material not copyrightable (such as any US government publication) material whose copyright has been abandoned (for example the author died with no heir)
If I lock you in a room without access to anything and tell you &quot;Write a novel&quot; and you write a novel with characters, you have copyright in the work. But it's not absolute: If you use your own characters, you own all the copyright in the work, but not in the idea, as ideas are not copyrightable, see Feist v Rural. If you use someone else's characters extensively (as in more than a short hommage/cameo), you very likely make a derivate. You own a copyright in your part, as in the expression of the story or pictures you created, but you do not gain property interest in the existing characters' expression. Since the copyright to the characters lies with the owner of their IP, you need their OK to release (and also to even make) your work - as with the owner of a copyright is the sole right to decide on distribution and creation of derivates under 17 USC § 106 (2). Also remember that making an unlicensed derivate work risks having nothing you can sue for in case the original copyright owner lifts your ideas and scenes-a-faire parts and adapts them for their own derivate, see Anderson v Stallone The strange case of fanfiction chains... Now, there is a strange situation when a work is based on a work which is based on a work... Then, publishers and editors start with red ink and the result is, that what people know as Twilight now has nothing to do with the fanfiction it started as (It wasn't Vampires in the original draft), and 50 Shades of Grey ended up striking any and all supernatural from it, despite it having been a Twilight fanfiction originally. By making own characters and own expression of the world, there could be no copyright infringement. US law vs Egypt law? Both Egypt and the US have signed the Berne convention, meaning that copyright is very very similar in the broad strokes that the right to allow or disallow derivates is with the copyright holder. Also, since Ben10's copyright owners are to the best of my knowledge in the US (Cartoon Network Studios &amp; Men of Action Studios), they will sue in a US federal court.
Yes. I am tempted to leave the above as the entirety of my answer, but to expand: Yes, you can do that. You won't (as a business matter) be able to charge all that much because many people will realize they can just download a similar picture from the net and print it off themselves. You can charge a bit because you've framed them (perhaps), and chosen the nicest, and perhaps you have a better printer, or have used the expensive glossy paper. Also, if you are successful charging a lot, other people will start selling the same pictures for slightly less (and you won't be able to stop them).
There is no case law as yet However, the most likely situation is that there is no copyright in the original works because they are computer-generated. There is certainly copyright in the code that created the art but the output of that code, the art itself, would probably not be subject to copyright. Copyright only exists in art created by humans. The US Ninth Circuit has held that animals cannot create copyrighted works. Subsequently, the US Copyright office has rejected applications for registration (a prerequisite to a suit in the US) of computer-generated art because it “lacks the human authorship necessary to support a copyright claim.” While this position has not been tested in the courts, I don't think they are any more likely to grant copyright to a program than they were to a monkey. What's going on? The OP states that there is litigation: there isn't. What there is, is a DCMA takedown request from Larva Labs. If this is complied with that will be the end of the matter; if it isn't then there may be litigation. However, before Larva Labs could sue CryptoPunks in the US they would first need to get a writ of mandamus to force the USCO to register it. If they try and fail then there will be a legally binding court decision that Larva Labs don't own the copyright in any of their computer-generated art. Which kills their business model and, presumably, them. This would be a very high-risk move. They may choose to sue in a jurisdiction where registration is not a prerequisite, however, that court would still need to be satisfied that there was a copyright that could be breached. So that's just a different take on the same problem. I have ignored the issue of NFTs as these are legally problematic in their own right and irrelevant to the main question. However, the NFT and the artwork are not the same thing.
You seem to assume that copyrights require paperwork such as registration. This is wrong, copyright is automatic. And it prevents the downloader from making the sort of change that you suggest. In fact, it prevents the downloader from using your template at all. The only reason the downloader can use that template is because you've granted him a specific license to ignore some copyright rules, but the default remains. And you did not grant the right to alter the template to free users.
The words "proprietary format" are important. Are you sure the format is proprietary? If it is, then it's likely protected in which case they might have grounds to sue (but that does not mean they would definetly win). If the format is not proprietary, and so long as you don't share data which is proprietary then I believe you fine. I'm not a lawyer - but I cite GIF files as an example. They were still protected by the US and some other countries until at least the late 90s and there were various threats to open source linux companies who shared code that used the file format. I'm not aware of anything other than threats and never heard of any company being sued, let alone winning or losing. Another example that comes to mind is the RedHat ISO format. My understanding is RedHat could not stop anyone from sharing open source, but they could prevent folks from sharing the format they assembled and shared the open source. Again, I am not sure if it was ever tested in any court of law anywhere.
"Pastiche" is a literary, not a legal term, and as a professional coder, I would not use it to describe code that to some extent imitated other code. The legal question here is: is your code a derivative work of the code it is based on, and if it is, did you have permission to make that work. Copyright, in an Berne Convention country, which includes the EU, does not protect ideas and concepts, it protects expression. It protects the choices of words and symbols, and other forms of expression. If all you did was study example code, presented for educational purposes, and then write code that performs a similar function, using the same general techniques, then I don't think you have infringed copyright. That, after all, is why people post code to Stack Overflow and similar sites, to allow them to learn how to use specific coding techniques, including in commercial projects. I have used techniques posted to SO to do coding as part of my paid job. The usual test for copying under US law is "substantial similarity". This takes into account cases where there is essentially only one way to say or code something. I don't know the exact tests under the various laws of various EU countries, and they will not all be the same. But I suspect that on this point they are, well, substantially similar :). I can't advise on your specific situation. But if it is as described, I don't think you have a problem.