Legality of stealing news Say I read in the newspaper that a kangaroo shot a man on highway 45. If I put this information on my homepage, and don't copy the exact wording of the newspaper, this is probably ok and not a violation of copyright or any other law. But what if I read the newspaper every day, summarize facts from it, and sell this information? It does not sound legal to me, but I would not know which law I am violating.
Facts are not copyrightable united-states Facts are not copyrightable since at least Feist Publications, Inc., v. Rural Telephone Service Co., 499 U.S. 340 (1991). IF you take only the facts and not the expression, then the news site can do nothing: you do not violate copyright by taking only the facts. Or as Scotus said in Feist: As a statutory matter, 17 U.S.C. § 101 does not afford protection from copying to a collection of facts that are selected, coordinated, and arranged in a way that utterly lacks originality. News contain more than facts. However, do note that news are not mere facts - like a phonebook as the Feist case was - but have their facts intricately entwined with expression. That's why press agencies like Reuters work: They get informed of facts, write an article and news sites buy that article's expression to refine it into their style. Most newspapers buy these articles, which leads to the appearance of nigh simultaneously reporting on the same event. To understand where the line is between fact and expression, compare the following headlines from 24th March 1933, all regarding the same event: Berliner Morgenpost titled their front page: Ermächtigungsgesetz mit 441 gegen 94 Stimmen angenommen (Enabeling Act approved with 441 to 94 votes) - That is merely reporting facts. Deutch Chinesische Nachrichten titled the front page: Ein Neues Zeitalter (A new Age) - This is an expression of opinion - and thus protected. New York Times titled, deep inside, in the category Special Cable: Speech of Hitler in Reichstag on His Policies for Germany - That is a fact.
It depends on the nature of the quote. Quotes from Buddha, Aristotle and Lincoln are out of copyright. Otherwise, the two basic questions are: who put that quote in fixed form, and is copying it "fair use"? If for example you happen to be at a political rally where a politician makes a noteworthy extemporaneous quote, you could be the copyright holder, because copyright law protects the person who first puts the work into fixed form. (If he's reading from prepared text, the speech writer or his employer would hold copyright). You can also quote small bits from any source, such as "Don't think about your errors or failures; otherwise, you'll never do a thing". It would not be "fair use" to chop up a novel into a sequence of 2-3 sentence quotes. This assumes that you manually assemble the quotes from legal sources, such as a print copy of "The Martian". Whether or not you can legally pull the data from an online source depends on the terms of service for that site. That lets out brainyquote as a source, so check the TOS for whatever source you get the material from.
In general this is protected by the first amendment. It is not in general a problem describing how one can one can do something illegal. But there are special cases to be careful with. You might want to do some research into the limits on free speech. It would be hard to provide an answer that fully covers all your different cases and you would need to be more specific about what illegal activity you want to describe. In describing how to do something illegal, you might accidentally share information that you are not allowed to share. When you post things online, this can be considered as publishing or exporting. Therefore certain export restrictions might apply. Also, It is illegal to publish bomb making manuals, with the knowledge or intent that this information be used to commit a federal crime of violence. See https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/842. There are restrictions on publishing material relating to cryptography without having an export license. Granted, this isn't necessarily related to publishing things that are illegal, but just to give an idea about how publishing/exporting knowledge can causes problems. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_the_United_States ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) sets restrictions on what you can publish about arms. What you publish can't be “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action.” See for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio. One might imagine that you could get into trouble if someone interprets what you do as inciting or producing a lawless action. It might sound obvious, but you want to make sure that you have the right to share the information that you have. The information that you are providing might be copyrighted in some way.
You are conflating the crime against the state of possession stolen goods with the common law tort against the owner for conversion. To your questions: How would this proceed? It seems like it would be very difficult to prove (short of getting public surveillance footage) that I even bought the item. If you read the second paragraph of the page you linked it says: In many jurisdictions, if an individual has accepted possession of goods or property and knew they were stolen, then the individual is typically charged ... If the individual did not know the goods were stolen, then the goods are returned to the owner and the individual is not prosecuted. Proof of the crime involves a "beyond reasonable doubt" standard of evidence of both the fact that you have the goods and that you knew they were stolen. If you become aware that they were stolen (e.g. the police tell you) and try to keep them then you have just committed the crime. Proof of the tort requires a "balance of probabilities" standard of evidence that you have the goods and that they belong to someone else; your knowledge that they were stolen is immaterial. In the first instance, the police would probably knock on your door, tell you why they were there and ask if the version of the story they have from the thief is essentially true. What happens next depends on your response: "Yes, I knew it was stolen; you better arrest me and I will plead guilty." This will play out as you expect. "Yes, I didn't know it was stolen, I will go and get it for you." You return the goods, give a statement and may have to act as a witness in the prosecution of the thief. You are down $1,000 but are now older and wiser. "No, I have no idea what you are talking about." Well, you have now committed the crime of hindering a police investigation and have also committed the crime of possessing stolen goods - you can no longer claim that you didn't know the goods were stolen; the police have told you they are. What happens next depends on if the police believe you or the thief. Surely they couldn't/wouldn't get a warrant to search my house? Want to bet? They certainly have enough to get a search warrant if they want one (probably). Whether they seek one probably depends on the value of the goods, how busy they are and how much you pissed them off. Could I be prosecuted if I didn't know it was stolen? Not if you return it as soon as practicable after being made aware that they were. The scam This seems like a lot of work for a very small return - spend your time worrying about things that are more likely to happen. Good Title All of this is tied up with the concept of good title. Basically, you cannot gain good title to property from someone who does not have good title themselves; if you buy goods from a thief you do not own them. For example, if A has good title to the goods, B steals them and sells them to C who sells them to D then A still owns them and can demand their return from D, D could demand the return of their money from C and C could do likewise with B but as far as A is concerned it doesn't matter that C &amp; B have lost money; that is simply too bad for them.
Legal unless you violate copyright. Screenshots will probably be fair use. The manuals/how-tos need to be your originals, not copies from anywhere.
There is no legal difference, really. There may well be a practical difference. It is much easier to steal a wheelbarrow than it is a 20-foot section of 2-foot wide iron conduit. But doing either is theft, and the legalities are pretty much the same. It is indeed easier to copy a song lyric, or a poem, then the text of a novel, say. But if done without permission, either would be copyright infringement, unless of course an exception to copyright, such as fair use (in the US) or fair dealing (in the UK and some other countries) applies. (Or unless the text is out of copyright. One may lawfully copy Shakespeare, for example. Or Mark Twain.)
The "Crabs" game can be legal if it is seen as a form of parody. That is one of the forms of "fair use" that allows copying (within limits). This is to allow the use of limited amounts of copying for critical or "mocking" pieces, which are considered a form of free speech. Two other issues come into play under "fair use." The first is whether or not this is "commercial" (yes) or non-commercial (e.g educational) use. That is mildly negative for "Crabs" but by no means dispositive. The second is the likely market impact, whether the new use tends to compete with the old use in its "home" market, or whether it is likely to open a new market of a very different, perhaps "opposite" audience that might later buy the original as a "crossover." The "Crabs" game seems to address the "green" or at least "pro animal" (PETA) market. If the defendant can show that the "Cards" market addresses e..g., your "inner Nazi," making it "opposite," that would be ideal. It would be less convincing if "Cards" were addressing e.g. human rights, because that might be seen to overlap with the green market in terms of social conscience.
There's a legal issue, and a practical issue. If you witness a crime, you can inform the police and something may happen. The FBI does actually investigate criminal copyright infringement, but they also don't respond to concerned-citizen complaints, only complaints of copyright holders (and not all of them). You cannot use DMCA takedown to get the service provider to remove the content (or shut down the site, or whatever would be necessary), since only the copyright holder can make the required sworn statements. So you have no legal recourse. A practical solution is to tell Google. This link could have been a way to inform them, but it seems to always resolve to identifying plausible DMCA takedown requests, and if you truthfully answer the &quot;are you the copyright holder&quot; question, you are told to go away. Even if you lie at the preliminary stage, the procedure ends with you making a sworn statement, and you can't lie on one of those. This information might allow you to send them a letter, which they might read. They might simply not consider it worth their time.