What is the equivalent to &quot;fair use&quot; in Europe? I'm preparing to publish an open source library. In order to research local law, I wanted to know if there is an equivalent term for the USA "fair use" in European law?
The United Kingdom and common-law countries generally use the concept of fair dealing. The EU doesn't really have a doctrine analogous to fair use. Instead, it has a list of explicitly permitted uses (Article 5 of the Information Society Directive), and its courts are generally very resistant to the adoption of fair-use analyses.
Sure, you can. But if you, from the US, contract with and pay someone outside the US and then use the results of that effort - the reverse-engineered code, either directly in violation of copyright or to find workarounds - within the US, you may not be culpable in a criminal sense (depending on different jurisdictions and trade/IP agreements), but you certainly would be liable in a civil sense. If the US based software developer (I assume a US-based software company, as you said "outside the US") tracks you down, they can open a civil action against you for any damages they want to claim, including theft of IP, loss of profits, EULA violations, and on and on, because you posses and are using reverse engineered code. How much money do you have to lose?
Your question mixes up two different aspects of intellectual property. From a copyright point of view, it is perfectly legal to reproduce the features of a one piece of software in another. The functionlity of the software is not copyright (although the detailed look and feel of the user interface might be). However you ask if you, as an employee, can do this by &quot;looking into the code of software X&quot;. Presumably by doing this learn something of the organisation and algorithms used. Even if you avoid direct copying, you are likely to have learned trade secrets of your employer, and publishing these is at least a civil tort in the US, and in some states a crime.
Probably not I think this question represents a misunderstanding of the linked article, and in any case of the specifically US doctrine of fair use. Fair use is always based on a part of a copyrighted work copied without authorization. If there was authorization, there would be no need to resort to the defense of fair use. The article discusses the commercial use of short sections of musical works used for commercial purposes. It points out that the idea that any use of an excerpt of less than 30 seconds is permitted is a myth. In this it is correct. While the amount of a copyrighted work used is one of the four factors to be considered in deciding wither a use is a fair use, it is not the only one, and no specific amount is always permitted. In Harper &amp; Row v. Nation Enterprises, 471 U.S. 539 (1985) The US Supreme Court held that quotes amounting to about 3-400 words from a 500-page book were an infringement, and were not a fair use, because they were the &quot;heart of the book&quot;. The linked article says that one should ask &quot;Was the work obtained from a legal source, in a lawful manner?&quot; and asserts that &quot;taking a copy from an unapproved source invalidates fair use.&quot; Nothing in 17 USC 107 says this, and I don't know of any authoritative source for such a statement. The article also says that &quot;Commercial, for-profit use is not fair use, while commentary or criticism may be.&quot; This is simply incorrect. While a commercial purpose tends to weigh against fair use, it does not preclude it, and commercial use has been held to be fair use in some cases. Even in the case of Harper &amp; Row v. Nation Enterprises linked above, fair use was seriously considered, and was not denied simply because the use was commercial. No one o0f the four fair use factors is final taken alone. I do not think the linked article is a reliable guide to US copyright law. In the case described by the question, an unreleased game has been distributed without authorization over the internet, and reviews written based on that unauthorized copy. Whoever copied the game committed copyright infringement, but a suit might not provide substantial damages unless actual economic harm could be demonstrated. (And, of course, the identity of the infringer would need to be proved.) But a review based on such a leaked copy would not necessarily be an infringement. If the review described the game, but did not quote any of its dialog or other text, and did not reproduce any sounds or images from the game, there would be no infringement. If the review did quote from the unauthorized copy, the usual fair use analysis would apply. The fact that the copy had been unauthorized would not determine the outcome. Fair use is defined by 17 USC 107. This provides: Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include— (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors. Note that criticism is one of the specified purposes for which fair use is designed, and an unpublished work is still subject to fair use. If the review quoted so much of the game that the potential market for it was harmed, that would weigh against fair use, but it is hard for me to see how a mere review could do that to an interactive game. (17 USC 107(4)) is normally applied when an infringing copy serves as a replacement for the authorized version, and sales are lost as a result. I suppose it might be argued that a bad review that was a direct result of an infringement came under this provision, but it is a strech at best, and US First Amendment considerations would tend to prevent such a ruling. In short, it seems unlikely that any normal review would be an infringement, and that the game was leaked would not make it one.
Copyright law is a country-by-country matter. Most countries are signatories to the Berne Convention, which provides a common framework, but there are still variations, generally in the duration of copyright or the definition of copyrightable material. According to the Hirtle chart, a video game that was first published in Europe in the year 2000 and subsequently published in the United States is still copyrighted in both the United States and whichever European countries it was published in. It is likely to be a work of corporate authorship, so the US copyright will expire on January 1, 2096 (unless a law extending the duration is passed). In the United States, the requirement to register a copyright was eliminated in 1989 as part of the Berne Convention Implementation Act; registration still provides benefits when filing a copyright-infringement lawsuit. Most European countries eliminated their registration requirements much earlier, if they had them at all: the Berne Convention dates from 1887. Copyright does not simply cease to exist when the owner does, or if the owner cannot be determined. The difficulty of tracking down copyright holders for old or little-known works is the driving force behind orphaned works legislation. There are no orphaned works laws in the United States, and since copyright is country-by-country, European laws won't help you if you're interested in publishing in the US. In order to track down the copyright holder, you'll need to figure out who originally held the copyright (probably the publisher, but it could be either development company, or both, or the game might be a collective work of the individuals who worked on it). If it was a work of corporate authorship, and none of the game-copyright sales mention it, copyright will have been transfered when the company owning the copyright was sold (as part of a general "and all intellectual property" clause).
17 U.S. Code § 107, which governs fair use in the US, says (emphasis mine): Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include— (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors. Note that commercial/educational use is part of only one factor. Even if that factor is in your favor, it may not be fair use, and even if it isn't in your favor, it might be fair use. Because fair use is determined on a case-by-case basis, we can't really say whether your use is fair use, with or without the donations. That would be the sort of thing you'd ask a lawyer about to get real legal advice on your particular case.
The length of a literary work doesn't determine if its use is fair use. Copyright does not cover names, titles of works, catchwords/catchphrases/advertising slogans etc. or lists of ingredients (like in a recipe or chemical instructions), however, the procedure can be copyright. The work must also be original. If the tweet copies something that already exists then there is no copyright in the tweet - if the thing that is copied has copyright protection then the tweet itself may be a violation. That said, assuming that the Tweet enjoys copyright protection, the owner will be the author: presumably the owner of the Twitter account. For anyone else to legally use it, the use must be either: Licensed by the copyright owner Fair use (USA) or Fair Dealing (most everywhere else in the English speaking world) For Item 1, the Twitter terms of service say: You retain your rights to any Content you submit, post or display on or through the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through the Services, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed). In case you don't know what that means, Twitter gives you this plain English summary: Tip: This license is you authorizing us to make your Tweets on the Twitter Services available to the rest of the world and to let others do the same. So, you can get permission from the copyright holder or from Twitter. Well, Twitter has given permission: Except as permitted through the Twitter Services, these Terms, or the terms provided on dev.twitter.com, you have to use the Twitter API if you want to reproduce, modify, create derivative works, distribute, sell, transfer, publicly display, publicly perform, transmit, or otherwise use the Twitter Services or Content on the Twitter Services. Providing you use their API, you can "reproduce, modify, create derivative works, distribute, sell, transfer, publicly display, publicly perform, transmit, or otherwise use the ... Content ..." Therefore, fair use/dealing considerations are irrelevant.
It Depends If the person reusing the image (lets call that person R for reuser) is not complying with the terms of the Creative commons license, which include a requirement to provide attribution of the source work, then R cannot rely on the license, and the granting of the license ad the presence of a license declaration is legally irrelevant. R must have some other basis to reuse the image. This could be an exception to copyright, such as fair use or fair dealing. Or possibly the image is not protected by copyright, for example because its copyright has expired, or because it is a work of the US Federal Government being used in the US. In the absence of such a basis, R is infringing copyright. In much of the world copyright now lasts for 70 years after the death of the author (or of all co-authors). In some different terms apply, ranging from life+50 to life+100. Sound recordings and photos get shorter terms in some countries. In the US the term is life+70 for recent works, but for work created and published before 1978 more complex rules apply, depending on the date of publication, and whether laws on notice and renewal were complied with. See the well-known chart Copyright Term and the Public Domain for the various cases and when copyright expires in each case. The question asks about fair use. This is a US-specific legal concept. It is designed to be flexible, an is highly fact-dependent. As a result it is rarely possible to say if a use will qualify as a fair use with certainty until a court passes on it. See Is this copyright infringement? Is it fair use? What if I don&#39;t make any money off it? for more on fair use. Not providing attribution is itself often considered to weigh against fair use. The question does not give enough detail to make even a good guess as to whether such a use is likely to be held to be fair use. Identifying the kind of eagle has some educational value, which might favor fair use to some extent, but must be considered in light of the overall purpose of the use, which is not described. There is no indication as to whether the original work is creative or factual, or whether the reuse would be likely to harm the market for the original. Much use of images on social media does not stand up under a fair use analysis. Providing proper attribution might well help any fair use claim. See also Do you have to give attribution if an image falls under Creative Commons?