&quot;Copyright does not protect facts&quot; - is this always true? Under another question of mine, I got an answer that states &quot;copyright does not protect facts&quot;. However, I'm not sure whether this is always true. For example, there is a site called whosampled.com that collects songs and their original samples (which are facts as far as I'm aware). However, the TOS of the site states the following: Our Service and all material available through our Service, including but not limited to text, graphics, logos, button icons, images, trade marks, databases, data and software (together the Content) are owned and controlled by or licensed to us, our affiliates and/or licensors. Those works are protected by copyright laws and treaties around the world. All rights in the Content are the sole and exclusive property of WhoSampled or such affiliates or licensors. You must not scrape, extract, reproduce, duplicate, copy, sell, resell or exploit any data or other material available on the Service without our express written permission. This sounds like they own the fact that one song is sampled from another, which contradicts with the original statement. Am I interpreting this correctly?
Whosampled.com is not just facts The information that a song was sampled in another is a fact. But the sample itself is not a fact! The sample is a sound file and an artistic work, for which Whosampled has most likely a license to offer, but which you under that license may not distribute. Further, the agglomerate of the whole website is more than just a mere fact, it is a database. Also, while a simple fact is technically free to reproduce, you still might contractually agree to not do certain things, like reproducing the facts. Yet, Terms of Service don't always hold water and some passages might be illegal - and thus void.
No, you misunderstand Fair use and infringed copyright Fair use only exists if enough of the four factors are given for it: The Transformative Factor The Nature of the Copyrighted Work The Amount and Substantiality of the Portion Taken The Effect of the Use Upon the Potential Market You fail on all of them: Cutting the video does not alter the meaning or expression. which means it is nontransformative and thus against OP. Music is usually with fictional works, the best you can get here is &quot;neutral*. but I would weigh against OP. Your Video took the total of the video and nothing else. Against OP. The full-length Video has a potential market that does include underage children. Your video tried to infringe on that market. Against OP. ERGO You are not enacting Fair Use but infringe copyright. Similar case: Vidangel Vidangel had been offering films in a censored fashion without the approval of the copyright holders. A court ruled that this is not fair use and it was sanctioned for 65 Million US-dollar.
Well, actually, fair use is maximally relevant. Copyright means, put simply, DO NOT COPY. Citing or not is irrelevant (plagiarism is a whole other non-legal kettle of fish). Technically, what you describe is violation of copyright. However, under section 107 of Title 17 (the copyright law), you could attempt to defend yourself against an infringement suit on the basis that your action was "fair use". See this LSE q&amp;a for the essentials of fair use.
Copyright is held by the person who puts the content out there in fixed form. If A reads a prepared text and B talks extemporaneously, A has copyright to his fixed text. Whoever then records the debate holds copyright to B's talk (not a typo). If that person is B, A can point out that A's copyright was infringed, presumably leading B to an equitable arrangement that would avoid copyright violation litigation. However, if the recorder is A, then B is hosed. On the other hand, if neither party has a prepared text, then the guy who does the recording has all the rights. And if both parties have prepared texts, nobody gets to record without a copyright agreement.
According to the Wikipedia article &quot;List of countries' copyright lengths&quot; the only country currently having no copyright law is the Marshall Islands, and that country is said to have a non-copyright-based law providing that &quot;Unauthorized sale or commercial use of sound &amp; audio-visual recordings is prohibited&quot;[1] However, if a person goes to the Marshall Islands, makes unauthorized copies of works there, and posts those copies to the net, the copyright owner could obtain an injunction under US copyright law requiring the site operator or host to remove the infringing content or be shut down.[2] Similar orders can be obtained under the laws of other countries. In addition, the copyright owner could send a takedown order under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).[3] A copyright suit could be brought by the copyright owner in any country where the unauthorized copies are distributed and, if damages were awarded, property subject to the jurisdiction of the court could be seized to pay them. In the US, infringing copies could be seized by customs officers when they are imported into the US.[4] Also, If an infringement suit is won, the court an order any infringing copies to be seized adn destroyed.[5] Conclusion Of course, if such copies were made in small numbers and distributed privately, the copyright owner might not learn of it. And in any case the copyright owner might not choose to take legal action. But merely making such copies in the Marshall Islands will not make the infringer safe from civil actions, nor will it make the copies lawful in the US, nor in most other countries. Notes [1] Unauthorized Copies of Recorded Materials Act, 1991 [20 MIRC Ch.2]&quot;. [2] 17 USC 502 (a) provides: (a) Any court having jurisdiction of a civil action arising under this title may, subject to the provisions of section 1498 of title 28, grant temporary and final injunctions on such terms as it may deem reasonable to prevent or restrain infringement of a copyright. [3] 17 USC 512 (c)(1)(C) and 17 USC 512 (c)(3) [4] 17 USC 602 (a) provides: (a)(1) Importation.—Importation into the United States, without the authority of the owner of copyright under this title, of copies or phonorecords of a work that have been acquired outside the United States is an infringement of the exclusive right to distribute copies or phonorecords under section 106, actionable under section 501. (a)(2) Importation or exportation of infringing items.—Importation into the United States or exportation from the United States, without the authority of the owner of copyright under this title, of copies or phonorecords, the making of which either constituted an infringement of copyright, or which would have constituted an infringement of copyright if this title had been applicable, is an infringement of the exclusive right to distribute copies or phonorecords under section 106, actionable under sections 501 and 506. [5] 17 USC 503 (b) provides: As part of a final judgment or decree, the court may order the destruction or other reasonable disposition of all copies or phonorecords found to have been made or used in violation of the copyright owner’s exclusive rights, and of all plates, molds, matrices, masters, tapes, film negatives, or other articles by means of which such copies or phonorecords may be reproduced.
No-ish, it is not. The relevant sticking point would be in their DMCA takedown notice, where they have to follow 17 USC 512(c)(3)(A) and include in their notice (v) A statement that the complaining party has a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law. (vi) A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed. The key here is having a "good faith belief". There is a credible scenario where a company A could file multiple notices for the actually same material B posted by the exact same person C, where the person has the right to post that material, and do so in good faith. If A was not able to locate evidence of the permission to C, then they would shift the burden of proof to C – "good faith belief" doesn't mean that they have to be right, just that they have to actually think they are. If C also uses the name D, A would not be able to determine that the work was licensed to D based on the fact (once they know that) that it is licensed to C. DMCA abuse is not an permanently open escape hatch. 17 USC 512(4) states Any person who knowingly materially misrepresents under this section— (1) that material or activity is infringing, or (2) that material or activity was removed or disabled by mistake or misidentification, shall be liable for any damages, including costs and attorneys' fees, incurred by the alleged infringer, by any copyright owner or copyright owner's authorized licensee, or by a service provider, who is injured by such misrepresentation, as the result of the service provider relying upon such misrepresentation in removing or disabling access to the material or activity claimed to be infringing, or in replacing the removed material or ceasing to disable access to it. See Automattic Inc. v. Steiner, 82 F. Supp. 3d 1011. The ruling judge found that "Defendant could not have reasonably believed that the Press Release he sent to Hotham was protected under copyright". The appeal court drew on precedent and dictionary to fill in gaps w.r.t. "good faith belief", that the person should have known if it acted with reasonable care or diligence, or would have had no substantial doubt had it been acting in good faith, that it was making misrepresentations In this case, the abuser was flagrantly abusing the takedown system, and there is some reason to believe that in the instant case, the abuser had actual knowledge of non-infringement. Rossi v. Motion Picture Association of America provides an alternative outcome. In this case, Rossi operated a website that appeared (note the word appear) to offer free downloads of movies, and the rights-holder MCAA filed a takedown notice. In fact, it did not offer any such downloads, but MCAA's investigation stopped prematurely. This court held that "good faith belief" is subjective, so Rossi did not prevail. It is no doubt crucial that Rossi actually counted on his customers thinking that you could get actual downloads of protected material. Whether or not a DMCA abuse suit would succeed would depend very much on the factual details of why the material is not infringing, and how easily the rights-holder could know that there was no infringement.
The tape is not in the public domain. Either they have granted permission to copy, or they have not taken action to pursue infringement. The current youngmoney website does not (on its public-facing page) grant any permissions, but things can change. In addition, permission could be granted in a specific instance as a personal favor or as a contract deal. There is no practical way for John Q Public to know. Datapif does not affirmatively represent that they have copyright-owner permission, and the attending circumstances indicate that &quot;somebody&quot; uploaded the album, but also they detected that there was some probable infringement and deleted a bunch of tracks, saying Some tracks were excluded from the zip file of this mixtape. This is most likely because a scan discovered that these tracks contained material that was commercially available. As such, we can not legally provide these tracks for download through DatPiff.com That &quot;somebody&quot; could have been the copyright owner, or Jane Q Public. Datapif is supposedly safe behind DMCA safe harbor provisions. In their TOS, they do say that The copying, redistribution, use or publication by you of any such matters or any part of the Site, except as allowed by Section 4, is strictly prohibited. You do not acquire ownership rights to any content, document or other materials viewed through the Site. The posting of information or materials on the Site does not constitute a waiver of any right in such information and materials. So Datapif states that you may not legally redistribute the material from their website on your own. But they are not the copyright holder, only the copyright holder can authorize redistribution, so Datapif is not in a position to grant permission.
You can report it to the publisher(s) Protection of copyright is a matter for the individual rights holder: some (I’m looking at you Disney) are vigilant, thorough and draconian in protecting their rights, others don’t care at all. Unless you are the rights holder it’s none of your business. In much the same way that the guy charging your neighbour for 4 hours gardening but being long gone in 2 isn’t. If you like your neighbour or feel duty bound to do something, you tell them and then leave it to them what they do with it. This is not a matter for the authorities as it doesn’t rise to the level of criminal copyright infringement. Just like the gardener above, this isn’t a crime.