What prevents me from making a derivative of a work never fixed in a tangible medium? Suppose I'm a singer-songwriter in the United States, and at one of my concerts, I perform a previously unreleased (and in fact never-before-recorded) song. I play this song from memory and by ear; I have never written down the tune or words. Perhaps I invented this song while on tour, and I intend to make a recording when my tour is over. Over the course of the tour, there are thousands of eyewitness accounts to this song's existence and its authorship by me. Before I ever produce a recording of the song, though, a fan produces some kind of derivative recording (a cover, or a song that's simply very similar) of my song. Do I have any grounds to claim copyright infringement, considering that I never fixed the work as either a sound recording or written musical composition? (Let us ignore the fact that I could lie by creating such a fixation after the fact and saying that it predates the recording -- suppose I honestly admit as a point of pride, or am unable to deny due to long-term witness accounts, etc., that the song was never fixed prior to the creation of the fan work.) What if a fan recorded my actual performance with a camera at my show? In that case, I was in no way responsible for the creation of the recording, but a significant part of the recording's value is my music. Do I have a copyright claim to control the distribution of such a fan recording, and does the prior existence of such a recorded fixation influence the derivative-work case above?
As always, it is hard to prove a negative, but there is no copyright in a work that has not been fixed. Copyright protection subsists, in accordance with this title, in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression... (17 USC 102) Further, a fixation is only a fixation if it is "by or under the authority of the author" (17 USC 101). This post from an attorney at Vogels &amp; Assoc. agrees that without fixation there is no copyright. Unauthorized fixation (the rogue audience filmer) and distribution of unauthorized fixations is prohibited: Whoever, without the consent of the performer or performers involved, knowingly and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain— (1) fixes the sounds or sounds and images of a live musical performance in a copy or phonorecord, or reproduces copies or phonorecords of such a performance from an unauthorized fixation; ... (18 USC 2319A, and see also 17 USC 1101) This is sometimes called a "fixation right" that performers own. It's also referred to as the "anti-bootlegging" statute. US v Moghadam calls this a quasi-copyright protection. To answer your question, where there is no fixation, there is no work to infringe, and whatever you would make wouldn't be a derivative work. Unauthorized fixation of the live performance is prohibited, and so is unauthorized distribution and reproduction of that unauthorized fixation. The performer doesn't get a real copyright in any element of the performance unless they fix it or authorize it to be fixed. Related Reading Hughes, Justin, Understanding (and Fixing) the Right of Fixation in Copyright Law (March 29, 2014). 62 J. Copyright Soc'y USA 385 (2015); Loyola-LA Legal Studies Paper No. 2014-10. US v. Moghadam, 175 F.3d 1269 (11th Cir. 1999)
No, it means you can't copy it. By default, the copyright to a work is owned by its creator, and nobody else is allowed to copy it, or create derived works, without their permission. That permission can be granted by a license. "License unknown" doesn't really tell us anything, but it certainly isn't clearly granting you permission. So you don't have permission to copy, and thus you cannot. You would have to seek permission from the copyright holder. See also If no licence is distributed with an application/source code, what license applies by default if any? (Some jurisdictions do allow for "fair use" exceptions, which allow you to copy a work without permission. You haven't said what jurisdiction you are in.)
There's usually at least a little wiggle room for a fair-use argument in copyright law, but as you're describing it, this sounds like a pretty straightforward copyright violation. A copyright holder's exclusive rights include the rights to make copies, create derivative works and publicly perform the work. Whichever way you want to characterize the podcaster's conduct, he's running afoul of at least one of these rights.
There are three questions relevant to this issue: Who owned the copyright in the first place? Was the copyright transferred? If not, was a license given to the site to use the content? In general, under most countries' laws, the person who creates an original work owns the copyright. The person with the copyright has the right to copy and distribute the work, and the right to prevent others from doing so. In some cases, such as where a work is created as a "work for hire" by certain employees under certain circumstances, the initial copyright is held by a third party. You will need a lawyer familiar with your jurisdiction and your circumstances to determine if this is the case. Finally, even if you own the copyright, you can license others to use your content. This may be in an express written document, or it may be an implied license--implied, for instance, by the act of posting it on their blog. The existence and scope of such a license is, again, something that will have to be determined based on your country's specific laws and your specific situation. The bottom line is: if you submitted articles to that blog, you can't complain that they posted them. Depending on the license in effect, you might be able to get them taken down, or you might not. You need a lawyer, not the internet, to tell you what your rights are in this very specific case.
Not copyright as such because that is about protecting a 'work' — a voice is not a 'work'. As the court said in one of the following examples, &quot;A voice is not copyrightable. The sounds are not 'fixed.'&quot; (You could copyright a roar or a yell — some kind of fixed arrangement of sound(s).) But some jurisdictions have recognised property rights in voices and/or that the voice is protected by the person's 'right of publicity' (the right to control the commercial exploitation of their identity, of which the voice is a part). For example: Bette Wins Ruling In ‘Sound-Alike’ Lawsuit - AP News June 23, 1988 SAN FRANCISCO (AP) _ A federal appeals court has reinstated a lawsuit filed by entertainer Bette Midler after an advertising agency allegedly tried to duplicate her voice and singing style in one of its ad campaigns. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled Wednesday that Midler could pursue her suit against the Ford Motor Co. and the Young &amp; Rubicam advertising agency. The court said certain personal attributes - such as a voice - can be considered property rights, protected by state law. ... U.S. District Judge Ferdinand Fernandez said Young &amp; Rubicam acted like ″the average thief″ but dismissed Midler’s suit, saying no law prohibits imitation of a singer’s voice. But the appeals court disagreed. &quot;A voice is as distinctive and personal as a face,″ the appeals court said. ″When a distinctive voice of a professional singer is widely known and is deliberately imitated in order to sell a product, the sellers have appropriated what is not theirs.&quot; judgment in Midler v Ford Another case in the US is Waits v Frito-Lay Inc. The US Court of Appeal found that a radio commercial's imitation of the voice of Tom Waits constituted a civil tort, &quot;voice misappropriation&quot;. I'm not aware of any cases involving computer synthesis of voices.
In your example is the spare part the subject of a design patent? I assume it is not. When you combine the spare part to create a “different product” does the finished product resemble the drawings in the design patent? If, in its intended use, the final thing is close enough to the design patent to fall within its scope then you might by indirectly infringing by inducing people to infringe. The scope of a design patent is very difficult to determine reliably. This has nothing to do with how you got the components of your product, just how the completed thing looks. Copyright does not cover products (unless it is a model of a building or a statue or mold for a statue).
They can be, and usually would be. If someone uses a a keyboard or other instrument that records a MIDI file, that file is protected by copyright as soon as it is saved. Or if some person or group perform a work and captures the performance with a digital recorder and saves it to a MIDI file, again that MIDI file will be protected by copyright as soon as it is recorded. However, if an existing recording is converted into a MIDI format, the MIDI will have the same copyright as the source recording, if any. No new copyright is generated, just as there is no new copyright for making a photocopy of a book. If the original recording was PD, so will the MIDI file be. Similarly, if a MIDI file is created directly and automatically from a score, it would have the same copyright as the score, nothing added, nothing changed. If the score is PD, so is the MIDI. But often the publisher of a score will claim a copyright on that version, even if the composition is PD. Sometimes such a claim is valid, sometimes not. It depends on how much original content the publisher added. If a work that is under copyright is recorded in a MIDI file, the file will be subject to two copyrights, the one on the composition, and the one on the recording. And if permission is not obtained from whoever holds the copyright on the composition, this will be copyright infringement. (There are, however, some cases where the law grants an automatic license to a performer for a &quot;cover&quot; version of a copyrighted work.) If a work that is PD is recorded in a MIDI file, the file will be subject to only one copyright, the one on the recording. This will initially belong to the musicians, or to their employer, depending on the agreements they have made. In short a MIDI recording is not legally different from a recording on magnetic tape or on vinyl, or in any other medium. The copyright is on the performance, although it protects the recording.
This appears to be very clear to me: "NPR does not allow other websites to post our content..." I cannot think of a more clear way to say "Do not reproduce our content on your site." Since you asked about licensing the right to reproduce their content, and they flatly ignored your request, I think it is safe to assume that they are not interested in licensing that right to you, even for a fee. This is also consistent with their "NPR does not allow [any] other websites to post..." language. It is always the copyright holder's right to refuse to offer any particular person (or all persons generally) a license, no matter what payment they might offer. (With the exception of statutory licenses, which in the U.S. exist only for recording covers of musical works.) They have also ignored your request to recompense them for infringement already performed. If in the future they decide to take legal action against you for your past infringement (hugely unlikely that such a hassle would be worthwhile for NPR) or seek any out of court settlement (again, quite unlikely they will care enough), I'm sure they will let you know. As they've said in their email, you are welcome to link to NPR's content. You are, of course, not welcome to spread misinformation or lies about NPR by claiming something like, "Look at this wonderful article that NPR wrote purely for us, at our personal request," or "NPR thinks that In Home Teaching Agency XXX is a great company, so we built a curriculum around their content," when NPR has never said any such thing. Any legal issue around linking would probably be a trademark offense, by wrongfully suggesting that NPR endorses you, or by misrepresenting yourself as an agent of NPR. If you don't do either of things, and just say, "Here's an article on [subject X] published by NPR," you're probably fine. If you want to be very thorough, you could include a disclaimer on your site like, "In Home Teaching Agency XXX is not a licencee or partner of NPR. Links to NPR articles are included for educational purposes only," or similar. This seems pretty excessive to me, since a reasonable person won't assume that linking to an article from a major news source suggests a partnership, but I suppose it couldn't hurt to include such a disclaimer.