Why is Pirate Bay charged but not Kickass Torrents? Why is only Pirate Bay charged with copyright infringement, and not other sites? Because, for example, Kickass Torrents (KAT) also does the same things as Pirate Bay and it's not charged. Why so? KAT is also as popular as Pirate Bay.
The players behind KAT don't make themselves known. The owners of Pirate Bay were known and were personally legally pursued. That's the place to start. Law enforcement can't criminally charge anyone if they don't know who is responsible. Second is that KAT complies with DCMA takedown rules. They publicly claim to at least. PB was known to have a more f-off attitude. The US Justice Dept does pursue KAT which is why KAT changes domains so often. They do get shut down. Law enforcement has better things to do. The record and movie studios and industry-groups have money and technology to pursue infringers. It's my impression that law enforcement is happy to let the copyright holders do the heavy lifting and the government can come in with criminal charges.
Am I as the user of this site in any way liable if the music turns out to violate copyright? Yes. In a similar way to if I give you “permission” to take my neighbour’s car. Only worse. Because stealing requires intent - you have to mean to do it - while copyright violation is strict liability - if you do it, you’re guilty. If the user that uploaded the item did not have the authority to give the site permission then the site does not have permission and neither do you. If you take reasonable precautions such as performing a reverse image source and verifying that the item appears to be owned by the same person everywhere and, perhaps, reaching out to them then your violation will be an “innocent” infringement which mitigates but does not eliminate damages. The only way to be sure with copyright is to know the provenance of the copyright/licences back to the original creator.
It's a contract violation if you're under the EULA. It may be a contract of adhesion, but such "clickwrap" contracts been found to be acceptable and enforceable in software EULAs out of necessity. However, there may be some limits. If you're not under the EULA, as you argue, then you lack a license to use the software at all and it's an outright copyright violation and/or a theft or misappropriation of the software. Whether or not you can be sued depends in part on what you do with it — if you don't release the material or otherwise cause damages then there's not much to sue for... Added for clarification: to answer the framing question, supposing neither contract or copyright applied, one could be sued in tort or in equity (i.e. for unjust enrichment).
Presumably by &quot;is illegal&quot; you mean &quot;violates copyright law&quot;. Copyright infringement is simply &quot;copying / distributing without authorization&quot;, which refers to the original work and not some other work. The act of originally writing a book is not &quot;copying&quot; (likewise &quot;taking a picture&quot;, etc), so the act of writing a book using pirated software is also not copying and not infringement. Nevertheless, the scope of remedies for the original infringement is not limited to just the cost of the infringed work. Under 17 USC 504(b), The copyright owner is entitled to recover the actual damages suffered by him or her as a result of the infringement, and any profits of the infringer that are attributable to the infringement and are not taken into account in computing the actual damages. This is sufficiently open-ended that profits from the sale of an original work created using infringed software could be attributable to the infringement.
I am not a lawyer; I am especially not your lawyer; this is not legal advice; if you want legal advice, hire a lawyer. Idk. But probably not. The YouTube terms of service seem to prohibit this pretty clearly: 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)... You agree not to access Content through any technology or means other than the video playback pages of the Service itself, the Embeddable Player, or other explicitly authorized means YouTube may designate. Now, were YouTube itself licensing the videos in question under the CC license, they might be prohibited from enforcing that term: You may not offer or impose any additional or different terms or conditions on, or apply any Effective Technological Measures to, the Licensed Material if doing so restricts exercise of the Licensed Rights by any recipient of the Licensed Material. though I'm not sure if the language in question would apply. However, it seems likely that in most cases, YouTube is using the material in question under the license to which users agreed when they created their accounts, and therefore is not bound by the term in question. All that said, it's entirely possible that the clause in the YouTube ToS prohibiting downloading does not apply for whatever reason (unconscionable in a contract of adhesion, browsewrap agreement doesn't form a contract to begin with, it's superseded by either some other agreement (part of the API EULA, etc), it's contrary to some law in your jurisdiction, etc). Just to be very clear, though, there is no COPYRIGHT CONCERN preventing uses like the one you mentioned.
Both Bob and Charles are liable for infringement in the US. The fact that Charles had no idea that Bob was an infringer is not a defense, but it mitigates the statutory damages consequences for him. Either party can negotiate with Alice after the fact for a license, and Alice can grant either party but not the other permission to copy. The terms of the license that Alice gives Bob could either allow CCo reposting, or some more restrictive redistribution right. If the license requires a notice prohibiting further redistribution and Bob omits that notification, Bob will have breached the terms of the license in omitting the notification, so we're back to square 1. If Alice fails to specify a no-redistribution notification condition on Bob's reposting, Alice may have granted an implied license to the world, a matter which has to be determined by the courts.
Yes, such a site can be created without infringing copyright Facts about the game are facts.They are not protected by copyright. Criticism of, and comment about the game, is an activity protected by the US First Amendment. Making such comments is very likely to be fair use under US copyright law. In general the author of a work, such as a book or a game, or the maker of a product, has no right to grant or withhold permission to discuss or comment on the work. This is true not only under US law, but also in the law of most countries (perhaps of all countries). The name of the game might well be protected as a trademark. But that does not allow the trademark owner to prevent discussion of the game, clearly identified by the name of of the game. As long as nothing is being sold or rented, or advertised for sale or rental under that name, and there is no attempt to claim that the site is sponsored or approved by the trademark owner, and there is no likelihood of confusion, there is no trademark infringement. This is true under US law, and under the trademark laws of most other countries. A wiki is a specific technology. It can be used for community discussion, or for a company's internal documentation, or for any of many other purposes. Wikipedia has popularized this technology. Not all community discussion sites are wikis, however, nor are all wikis for community discussion. Just as not all novels are books printed on paper, and not all books are novels. In any case, setting up a wiki about a topic such as a game, a movie, or a novel does not require permission from the owner or creator of the game or of any trademarks associated with the game or work. The same would be true for a discussion forum about such a game or work that is not a wiki. If a wiki uses excessive quotes from game dialog, or uses the game's logo without permission, or reproduces other game assets, such as character art, maps, and the like without permission, that might be copyright infringement.
From your question(s), as well as your various comments, I understand you to have two general inquiries: 1. Is there any infringement of copyright laws if you use things like the titles of books, games, apps, names, address (and any other number of things) which you will then put into datasets that will be licensed for proprietary commercial purposes? You may freely put titles, names of people, places or things into datasets without fear that you are infringing on copyright or any other laws. That is clear. Copyright law does not protect names, titles, short phrases or expressions. Even if a name, title, or short phrase is novel or distinctive it cannot be protected by copyright. So, there is no point in discussing the doctrine of fair use in this context, because Fair Use is a defense, or a legal safe harbor that is merely an exception to copyright infringement allowing people to use a copyrighted works under specific circumstances. As I understand your intended endeavor, you will not be infringing on any copyrights to the extent that you are merely using factual data, like names of copyrighted things for the purpose of creating a dataset or an application to help access it. This is why I say you need not concern yourself with the test for Fair Use with regard to this issue. The Copyright Office states clearly, despite what people may think, that there are no exclusive rights in brief combinations of words such as: • Names of products or services • Names of businesses, organizations, or groups (including the names of performing groups) • Pseudonyms of individuals (including pen or stage names) • Titles of works • Catchwords, catchphrases, mottoes, slogans, or short advertising expressions • Listings of ingredients, as in recipes, labels, or formulas. When a recipe or formula is accompanied by an explanation or directions, the text directions may be copyrightable, but the recipe or formula itself remains uncopyrightable. Hence, these things are not registrable under a copyright. While something may be potentially attached to or included in copyrighted material, is not in and of itself subject to the protections of these laws. If it (whatever it is) cannot be registered for a copyright, it is not copyrightable. Because copyright registration/notices have been optional since 1989, when the U.S. attached itself to the Berne Convention, whereby copyright protection is automatic as soon as a work is “fixed in a tangible medium of expression” (written down, recorded, painted, etc.) it’s protected. No notice is required. Registration only becomes required for litigation or enforcement purposes. But this is really extraneous to your inquiry anyway, as far as it applies to the actual data. When you get into copying whole databases for your purpose, that analysis is different. 2. You want to "scrub" the internet for information that you intend to put into your proprietary datasets and use for commercial purposes, some or most of which is already in a database or some organized form, and you want to know if there is some sort of copyright or duty owned to the person who originally databased the materials? Since ideas, procedures, principles, discoveries, and devices are all specifically excluded from copyright protection, if you want to compile this type of information from the internet for the purpose of creating datasets, or searchable databases, this is permissible. That said, there are protections for existing databases under copyright law, provided under the concept of a "compilation copyright". A compilation copyright protects the collection and creative assembling of data or other materials. Compilation copyrights protect the collection and assembling of data or other materials, such that databases are generally protected by copyright law as compilations. Under the Copyright Act, a compilation is defined as a "collection and assembling of preexisting materials or of data that are selected in such a way that the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work of authorship." 17. U.S.C. § 101. The preexisting materials or data may be protected by copyright since the selections of materials and the form they take in an existing database may be original enough to be subject to a copyright. However, the data itself is merely information and is not protectable. The Copyright Act specifically states that the copyright in a compilation extends only to the compilation itself, and not to the underlying materials or data. 17 U.S.C. § 103(b). As a result, "compilation copyrights" can't be used to place protection upon those things that are otherwise not protectable. In the case of Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Company, Inc., the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a compilation work such as a database must contain a minimum level of creativity in order to be protectable under the Copyright Act. Feist makes clear that even a copyright protected database does not hold the right to prevent an individual from extracting factual data from the database (so long as you're not copying the entire database as a whole). If you take an already compiled and copyrighted dataset in its entirety, you must obtain a license for its use. However, if you are merely amassing great amounts of data to then put into your own dataset, that you are free to do. The big issue will be (and you seem to realize this) where you will amass this data from. Some websites have specific licenses in place that say you cannot use or rework their content. However, many times these websites simply throw these license requirements out there for users to see, despite the fact that they may not be (and some would argue) are not enforceable. The courts have heard arguments that "contracts" (the end-user licenses) that protect databases and information on websites is beyond the protection available through copyright law should be "preempted" by the Copyright Act itself. The preemption argument goes like this: Federal law controlling something that is subject to interstate commerce or use, should be controlled by the federal laws. So,since the federal government has enacted the Copyright Act to govern any protections to any original works, states should be (arguably are) prohibited from having contradictory laws. Because of the ability of a federal statute to preempt state law, and the fact that the Copyright Act at 17 U.S.C. § 301 sets forth specific preemptions, no state may create rights that are equivalent to any of the exclusive rights provided under the Act. It is this concept of preemption that prevents copyright protection from varying depending upon the state where a work of authorship is created. Arguably, the same is true for the internet, and supposed contractual relationship created through licenses that dictates how non-copyrightable material may be used. In the case of ProCD, Incorporated v. Matthew Zeidenberg and Silken Mountain Web Services, Inc. the court examined whether an end-user of a CD ROM phone database was subject to the license, when they extracted a large portion of the database and made it available over the Internet. The database was almost the same as the type of data in the Feist case-The lower court rejected all copyright claims and found that the shrinkwrap license that controlled the end user's right to use the data was both unenforceable (as a shrink wrap license) and preempted by the Copyright Act. As a result, there was no relief available to the creator of the phone database and the end-user was free to extract the data and use it as he saw fit. However, on appeal this decision was reversed (7th circuit). The appellate court did acknowledge that the database (on the CD) was not original enough to be protected by copyright (finding no copyright infringement by the end-user); However, they did find the end-user was breach of contract, since the shrink-wrap license prohibited the end-user's conduct. What this tells us is that these licenses (on websites) may or may not be enforceable. While the 7th Circuit found a contract right pursuant to the license, despite the preemption argument, another appellate court that is more liberal may find otherwise. Also, this was a disk, not the internet, which is the "wild west" of information, largely unregulated and unlitigated as it pertains to the legality and enforceability of (some) regulations that do exist. License agreements for site use on the internet are everywhere. If you take a database from some site that has a license saying you cannot take their work and add to it, or whatever, and you do add it to other databases that are not licensed and then make your own dataset - chances are you are NOT going to be infringing on anyone's copyright. That said, you may be in breach of contract (the license) if they find out about it, and sue you (using it doesn't put you in breach; only getting sued and having a court determine you're in breach puts you in breach. It may be a distinction worth contemplation, but that is up to you). The safest, bet would be to get a license from them to rework the materials. If the material is generic enough, and will be changed enough, that you are creating your own new (copyrightable) work - I'm not sure how they would know you "scrubbed the data in contravention of their license agreement ( I have NO CLUE if there is coding or metadata attached to it such that it's identifiable in that way. I have not tech background and do not endorse taking what's not yours). But if they can and do know, they could cause problems for you. Lastly, I will just say that the internet is littered with sites that claim copyrights, or impose unenforceable licenses on material that is ripe for public use. Just because it says it's theirs does not make it so. The inverse is also true. Just because a site does not claim copyright to something, does not mean it is in the public domain. I would recommend either sticking to public domain/use sites for your scrubbing endeavors, or seeking permissions from the sites who impose licensing requirements. Short of that, I would recommend (as I already have) seeking an formal legal opinion to say that you are not imposing on anyone's copyrights (this could only be done once you showed an attorney every place you took material from, as well as what the material is), and that the licenses from sites with generalized information that may try to limit use, are unenforceable. I would do this before you invest a lot of time or money into something that is largely based on the accumulation of other peoples work product. I wish there was an answer certain, but there just isn't without seeing everything in the end.