Is it legal to completely retell a film in text? Let's say I watched a film and I really liked it. Now I want to tell my subscribers on Facebook the entire plot of the film. I don't use the real script of the film. I create a post where I retell the film plot in my own words (but I don't change anything, the names are the same, everything is the same, it's just a conversion in textual form) and retell it completely. Is this action legal? Do I have any problems with copyright law?
This is known as "film novelization"(For example, the novelizations of the Star Wars movies are film novelizations, created under license), and is copyright infringement unless made under a license from the copyright holder. Specifically, you would be making a derivative work of the original, by changing the medium. One of the rights provided by copyright is the right to control the transference from one medium into another. This, in my (non-lawyer) opinion, is unlikely to be found as fair use. There are four test factors for determining fair use(source), decided on a case by case basis: Transformative Character of the Derivative Work: Unlikely to be found in your favor, as nothing is transformed ("I don't change anything, the name are the same, everything is the same, it's just a conversion to textual form"). Nature of the Original Work: A narrative entertainment film, thus unlikely to be found in your favor. Amount and Substantiality of the Portion Taken: You've taken all of it; not in your favor. Effect on the Potential Market: You are essentially providing a free version of what copyright holders can often charge for; negative effect on their potential market. Not in your favor.
Yes So far so good. This is a copyright violation but it is probably fair use - certainly there is case law permitting a copy of a backup digital asset to be made so I don’t see why a similar argument wouldn’t work with backing up a physical book. Clear copyright violation. Alice can rent out the original under the first sale doctrine but the ‘backup’ is not so protected. It’s not fair use because it’s use is commercial, the work is a type of work the author expects to profit from, the entire work has been copied and the use is deleterious to the market i.e. the renters are less likely to buy an original - it falls foul of all four factors of the fair use test.
A book (or any other creative work) published in the 1800s is now in the public domain everywhere in the world (excepting odd cases like Peter Pan where a special rule applies in some jurisdictions.) Anyone may legally quote from such a work at any length with no legal requirement for permission. In fact there is no legal requirement to attribute the quote to the author (although there is an ethical requirement). In fact one may publish a new edition of such a work, unchanged or modified in any way one chooses, with no legal need to obtain permission from anyone or to pay any royalties or fees. If the work were recent enough to still be protected by copyright, a limited quote could be used under fair use, fair dealing or another exception to copyright under the laws of most countries. The exact rules vary by country, and are often highly fact-dependent, so the exact details will matter. If one wanted to quote enough from a recent work that permission is required, the copyright holder, who is often not the publisher, would need to grant permission. That is often the author or the author's heir, but it can be a person or firm to which the author transferred the rights. Sometimes the rights-holder can be hard to identify. Update: it would be possible for a work published in, say, 1890 by an author then young who lived to a fairly old age, dying in, say 1960, to still be protected in some countries, although not in the US. (Anything published before 1925 is now PD in the US.) But Charlotte Bronte died in 1855, and all of her work has long been in the public domain
Expression is tied up with fixation. Copyright subsists in a work that is fixed in a tangible medium of expression from which they can be reproduced, perceived, or communicated. 17 USC 102 This expression is protected, not the idea. However, copyright infringement can occur even when there is not an exact copy. First, courts use a substantial similarity standard to determine if infringement has occurred. Second, when a character or plot is sufficiently developed, taking that character or that plot can be infringement, even if not expressed in the exact same manner. "We do not doubt that two plays may correspond in plot closely enough for infringement [...] the less developed the characters, the less they can be copyrighted; that is the penalty an author must bear for marking them too indistinctly." Nichols v. Universal Pictures Corporation, 45 F.2d 119 (2d Cir. 1930) Some characters or plot elements are so common to a genre that they are either not considered "original" enough to get copyright protection, or can be taken by others without being considered infringement. This is the scènes à faire doctrine. "Stock scenes and hackneyed character types that "naturally flow from a common theme"—are considered "ideas," and therefore are not copyrightable. But as plots become more intricately detailed and characters become more idiosyncratic, they at some point cross the line into "expression" and are protected by copyright." Suntrust Bank v. Houghton Mifflin Co., 268 F. 3d 1257 - Court of Appeals, 11th Circuit 2001 See Amanda Schreyer's An Overview of Legal Protection for Fictional Characters: Balancing Public and Private Interests for many more cases and examples of the idea-expression dichotomy in action with respect to fictional characters.
There are no laws requiring that any company must publish all opinions from its customers. I'll admit it's fundamentally dishonest to only publish the positives, but there's no prohibition against it either. Look at movie advertisements, for example. They'll paraphrase or selectively quote a review, citing only what seems to be positive, yet if you read the review and quote in context, you'll understand the review quite differently. How exactly would you police it if you were to require companies to publish all reviews? Would you have some kind of litmus test to determine whether the critique is justified and fair? How often do people post false reviews (good or bad), and how would you account for them? Company web sites offering reviews form their own customers are doing nothing more than using the web as an extension of their marketing, so one has to expect some manipulation of the information in order to present products and services in their best possible lights. Why, for example, would I tell you how much someone hates my product when my goal is to sell it to you? This is why it would be better to use independent third-party review sites that have no dog in the hunt when it comes to honest feedback about the companies they cover.
In general, using content provided by another who incorrectly posted it under a permissive license, such as a CC license, does not grant a valid license from the real copyright holder. That is, if A writes some code (or a song, or creates an image, or whatever else), it is protected by copyright. If B then posts it to the web, with a statement that it is released under a particular license, without having obtained permission from A, then B's &quot;release&quot; is of no value, because B had no rights to grant. If C downloads and uses this content, relying on B's license, then A could take legal action against C. C would probably be considered (in the US) an &quot;innocent infringer&quot; which reduces the minimum statutory damage amount, but does not otherwise change C's legal position. A could, if it chose, bring suit and possibly obtain a judgement including some damages. But to return to the practical case of code posted on one of the SE sites. Given the comparatively short code sections usually posted, and that they do not usually form a complete working program, and given further the stated educational purpose of SE, it is likely that in US law such a posting would constitute fair use, and in the law of other countries fall under one or another exception to copyright. That is a general conclusion, the details would matter. I have not heard of a case similar to that suggested in the question. I find it unlikely that an SE poster would post copyright-protected code without permission, that is valuable enough to be worth an infringement suit, and substantial enough and having enough effect on th market for the original to be outside the protection of fair use. Such a situatiion is, of course, possible, even if unlikely. Note that a cease-and-desist letter is not a court order, and is really only a threat of court action. its only legal effect is to put the recipient on notice, so that continued infringement is not without awareness of the copyright claim. To have legal effect the claimant must actually bring an infringement suit, which is not without cost.
Each episode of the show as a whole, and all the individual images in it, are protected by copyright, but the idea of a holophonor, or indeed any idea, is not. The more closely anyone else's drawing of a gadget resembles one from the show, the more likely it would be to be found to infringe copyright. The same is true of a character image. The more distinctive and original the image, and the more closely someone copies it, the more likely a finding of infringement would be.
The author of that work owns its copyright. Barring a licence that gives you the right to use it, you are infringing copyright. (I'm assuming no fair use in this case; i.e. the YouTube clip isn't actually about the audio track.) If you pay for licences, make sure the licence allows for the purpose you intend to use it for.