Creative commons license vs copyright, who wins? There's an image of a pokeball (from Pokemon, which is owned by Nintendo) that I found online. It has a creative commons license 3.0. Could I sell this image without being sued by Nintendo? The creative commons license says I can sell it for commercial use, but I found articles online of Nintendo suing people for selling their stuff. So who owns this image? Am I safe from the law if I sell it?
If the "Pokeball" image is copyrighted and/or a trademark of Nintendo/whoever makes the Pokemon games, then whoever put that image out there under CC 3.0 BY is in violation and can be sued and will probably lose, and you would be in violation and can be sued and will probably lose. Your penalty would almost certainly be less since your violation was "innocent", that is, you had no way of knowing that the "Pokeball" imagery was somebody's protected intellectual property. ... Except you kind of maybe should know that, unless whoever made the Pokemon games (Nintendo or other) put the image out there and you can verify that, that maybe this license could be bogus and you should consult with who you imagine the owner of that IP may be or an impartial professional who could tell you for sure. I'm thinking if it were me I would do a little more research - and maybe get a paid opinion - if I was really thinking about using this for any but private purposes.
No. That clause does not give other users a licence to reproduce the work (other than what is necessary to access or use it) or create derivative works. The copyright owner has the exclusive right to do those things. (See 17 USC 106.) The clause you quote only indicates that other users can "access" (download for viewing) your "information" and use it, too. It doesn't give away any of your exclusive copyright in the work. You do grant Facebook a licence to do certain things with your work in section 2.1 of the Terms of Service, though.
Being or not being open source makes fairly little difference in trademark law. If a commercial firm (Yoyodyne, say) had used the name &quot;Portable Network Graphics&quot; and the abbreviation &quot;PNG&quot; in trade, and taken such further steps as would be needed to protect it in the relevant countries, that firm would have a protectable trademark. Note that in some countries, a trademark must be registered to have any protection at all (much of the EU follows this rule). In others, use in commerce can offer some protection even without registration (the US follows this rule). Had this happened (in an alternate reality) Yoyodyne could have sent a cease and desist letter when open source developers started using the mark. If the devs did not cease, Yoyodyne might have obtained an injunction, or damages for trademark infringement, or both. They could also have issued a takedown notie to the site hosting the project. But had Yoyodyne failed to defend the mark effectively and allowed it to become generic, Yoyodyne might have lost all rights to it. Also, had Yoyodyne ceased to use it in trade for a significant period, they might have lost rights. This is a place where the different laws in different countries might lead to different results. Note that &quot;Portable Network Graphics&quot; is rather descriptive, and not particularly distinctive. Descriptive marks, like &quot;Tasty Pizza&quot; generally get weaker protection, while more distinctive marks, such as &quot;LuAnn's Tastee Pizza&quot; are more strongly protected, in general. Again this depends on the country, and the specific facts. In general the first to use, or to register a mark, gets the rights. When one entity is the first to use, but a different one is first to register, things can get confusing, and results will be different in different countries. Note that a Cease and Desist letter is not a legal requirement. It is a threat of possible future legal action, and often an offer to avoid such action if the recipient does as the sender requests. The recipient can comply with the letter, wait for court action, or try to make some sort of compromise deal. Open source projects, as other answers suggest, often choose to comply.
Your photos of their copyrighted sculpture would constitute "derivative works" or "copies" of their sculpture in a different form, thus infringing the copyright, absent a statutory exemption or a license. They have granted a license for certain limited uses. You would have the burden of proving a statutory exemption, such as "fair use", or compliance with their license, were you to be charged with infringement. Commercial sales of photos of someone else's art, displayed in public, are not "fair use". Similar issues are raised in https://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/4140/what-are-the-copyright-issues-when-selling-photos-of-public-art
Yes, you may The layout of the board and its appearance are not protected by copyright, because they are not expressions or any other type of copyrightable content. Even if they were (say if some protested art was displayed on the board) you are displaying this for instructional purposes, and not harming any market for the board, so fair use is likely to apply (in the U.S.). The device could be protected by patent, but you are not copying or imitating the board, nor showing anyone how to do so, so that would not apply. You are not selling or advertising the board, nor knock-offs of it, so trademark protection would not apply, even if a protected trademark is visible on th board. Just in case, be sure to make clear that your video is not authorized or endorsed by the maker of the board.
Let’s work it through Is the work copyright? Yes. Are you making a copy or a derivative work? Yes. Do you have permission? No. At this point, it is prima facie copyright violation. However, various copyright laws have defences for breach. You don’t say where you are but as the USA is the most permissive in this regard we’ll use the USA. If it’s not legal there, it’s not legal anywhere. If it is legal there, it’s still likely to be not legal everywhere else. is it fair use? Almost certainly not. Wizards of the Coast (the copyright owner) already do this. While this service is free for creatures from the Monster Manual, it does drive traffic to their web site where they sell stuff. They also licence (presumably for money) others to do the same. Your usage would negatively affect the copyright owners market. This counts against fair use. Because it’s already being done, your work has virtually nil transformative value. This counts against fair use. You are copying a substantial part of the work. This counts against fair use. You are not using it commercially but neither is it for educational use. This is unlikely to matter. On balance: not fair use. TL;DR This is copyright violation.
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.
My question is, because I am not making any income from the distribution of the game, would the use of the copyrighted music fall under Personal Use? There are some &quot;private use&quot; exemptions in Australian copyright law but they have some fairly narrow conditions. These exemptions are fairly narrow because the point of copyright law is not to prevent you from making money with someone else's intellectual property but to protect the other person's ability to make money with it. If Alice writes a song and Bob distributes it free of charge, Alice loses revenue. Similarly, it is Alice's right to decide whether that song should be included in a freely available open-source software product, and her right to decide whether to allow that use without charge or in exchange for a license fee.