How can the NFL assert copyright over &quot;any pictures, descriptions, or accounts of the game&quot;? The NFL's copyright statement for today's big game, and presumably for other football games, contains language like "Any other use of this telecast or any pictures, descriptions, or accounts of the game without the NFL's consent is prohibited". How can they prohibit someone from making their own "descriptions or accounts" (or, indeed, their own pictures - if someone brings a camera phone into the audience they may be violating some stadium policy, but they're not violating copyright) under copyright law?
The NFL cannot use copyright as a basis for preventing independently made recordings, &quot;descriptions or accounts&quot;, but can prevent usage of their own such items. The case National Basketball Association v. Motorola [wiki, full text] contains a concise summary of the law on this issue: [29] [...] The House Report also makes clear that it is the broadcast, not the underlying game, that is the subject of copyright protection. In explaining how game broadcasts meet the Act's requirement that the subject matter be an &quot;original work[] of authorship,&quot; 17 U.S.C. § 102(a), the House Report stated: [30] When a football game is being covered by four television cameras, with a director guiding the activities of the four cameramen and choosing which of their electronic images are sent out to the public and in what order, there is little doubt that what the cameramen and the director are doing constitutes &quot;authorship.&quot;
Copyright, No US Copyright does not protect names, images, or &quot;personas&quot;. The US Copyright Office Circular 33 (&quot;Works Not Protected by Copyright&quot;) states, on pages 2-3: Words and short phrases, such as names, titles, and slogans, are uncopyrightable because they contain an insufficient amount of authorship. The Office will not register individual words or brief combinations of words, even if the word or short phrase is novel, distinctive, or lends itself to a play on words. Examples of names, titles, or short phrases that do not contain a sufficient amount of creativity to support a claim in copyright include: The name of an individual (including pseudonyms, pen names, or stage names) The title or subtitle of a work, such as a book, a song, or a pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work The name of a business or organization The name of a band or performing group The name of a product or service A domain name or URL The name of a character Catchwords or catchphrases Mottos, slogans, or other short expression An image, including a portrait, is usually protected by copyright (unless it is old enough that the protection has expired). But the copyright most often belongs to the creator of the image, such as the photographer or artist, not by the subject represented. If Bob draws or paints or otherwise creates an image of Alice, from seeing her in person or from multiple publicly available likenesses of her, not clearly based on any one such image, Bob will hold the copyright in that image unless he sells or otherwise transfers the copyright. Alice will not have any copyright in such an image. Right of Publicity, Yes Some but not all US states, and some but not all countries, recognize a &quot;right of publicity&quot;. In Ohio, the &quot;Right of publicity&quot; is protected by Chapter 2741 of the Ohio Revised Code. This right extends to various aspects of a person's &quot;persona&quot;, and may be enforced by a civil suit. These rights do not depend on a person's status as a &quot;public figure&quot; or &quot;celebrity&quot; or not. These rights are separate from any copyrights involved. These rights may be limited by the rights granted by the First Amendment to the US Federal Constitution. Section 2741.01 (Defnitions) provides, in relevant part, that: (A) &quot;Persona&quot; means an individual's name, voice, signature, photograph, image, likeness, or distinctive appearance, if any of these aspects have commercial value. (B) &quot;Commercial purpose&quot; means the use of or reference to an aspect of an individual's persona in any of the following manners: (B) (1) On or in connection with a place, product, merchandise, goods, services, or other commercial activities not expressly exempted under this chapter; (B) (2) For advertising or soliciting the purchase of products, merchandise, goods, services, or other commercial activities not expressly exempted under this chapter; (B) (3) For the purpose of promoting travel to a place; (B) (4) For the purpose of fundraising. (C) &quot;Name&quot; means the actual, assumed, or clearly identifiable name of or reference to a living or deceased individual that identifies the individual. (D) &quot;Right of publicity&quot; means the property right in an individual's persona to use the individual's persona for a commercial purpose. Section 2741.02 (Using individual's persona for commercial purpose without authorization.) provides that: (A) Except as otherwise provided in this section, a person shall not use any aspect of an individual's persona for a commercial purpose: (A) (1) During the individual's lifetime; (A) (2) For a period of sixty years after the date of the individual's death; or (A) (3) For a period of ten years after the date of death of a deceased member of the Ohio national guard or the armed forces of the United States. (B) A person may use an individual's persona for a commercial purpose during the individual's lifetime if the person first obtains the written consent to use the individual's persona from a person specified in section 2741.05 of the Revised Code. If an individual whose persona is at issue has died, a person may use the individual's persona for a commercial purpose if either of the following applies: (B) (1) The person first obtains the written consent to use the individual's persona from a person specified in section 2741.05 of the Revised Code who owns the individual's right of publicity. (B) (2) The name of the individual whose persona is used was the name of a business entity or a trade name at the time of the individual's death. (C) Subject to the terms of any agreement between a person specified in section 2741.05 of the Revised Code and a person to whom that person grants consent to use an individual's right of publicity, a consent obtained before the death of an individual whose persona is at issue remains valid after the individual's death. (D) For purposes of this section: (D) (1) A use of an aspect of an individual's persona in connection with any news, public affairs, sports broadcast, or account does not constitute a use for which consent is required under division (A) of this section. (D) (2) A use of an aspect of an individual's persona in connection with any political campaign and in compliance with Title XXXV of the Revised Code does not constitute a use for which consent is required under division (A) of this section. (E) The owners or employees of any medium used for advertising, including but not limited to, a newspaper, magazine, radio or television network or station, cable television system, billboard, transit ad, and global communications network, by whom any advertisement or solicitation in violation of this section is published or disseminated are not liable under this section or section 2741.07 of the Revised Code unless it is established that those owners or employees had knowledge of the unauthorized use of the persona as prohibited by this section. Section 2741.03 states that these rights apply only to the use of the persona of a person resident in the state of Ohio, or who was so resident when that person died on or after January 1, 1998. Section 2741.04 states that the rights of publicity can be livened, transferred by contract, or left as an inheritance. Section 2741.05 defines who may grant written consent for use of a persona, including the person whose persona it is, a person who owns more than 50% of the rights, and a person explicitly authorized to grant such consent (such as an agent). Sections 2741.06 and 2741.07 authorize a civil suit for violation of rights of publicity. The plaintiff may receive any or all of: actual damages; statutory damages in an amount between $2,500.00 and $10,000.00; and in an appropriate case punitive or exemplary damages. Awards of legal costs add attorney fees are authorized. Injunctions to halt further violations are authorized. Triple damages are authorized against certain parties. Products, merchandise, and goods made in violation of these rights may be seized, and after a final judgemetn, destroyed orm otherwise disposed of. Section 2741.09 (Exceptions) provides that: (A) This chapter does not apply to any of the following: (A) (1) (a) A literary work, dramatic work, fictional work, historical work, audiovisual work, or musical work regardless of the media in which the work appears or is transmitted, other than an advertisement or commercial announcement not exempt under division (A)(1)(d) of this section; (A) (1) (b) Material that has political or newsworthy value; (A) (1) (c) Original works of fine art; (A) (1) (d) An advertisement or commercial announcement for a use permitted by division (A)(1)(a), (b), or (c) of this section. &lt; (A) (2) The use of an individual's name to truthfully identify the individual as the author of or contributor to a written work or the performer of a recorded performance under circumstances in which the written work or the recorded performance is otherwise lawfully reproduced, exhibited, or broadcast; (A) (3) The use of an aspect of an individual's persona in connection with the broadcast or reporting of an event or topic of general or public interest; (A) (4) The use of the persona of an individual solely in the individual's role as a member of the public if the individual is not named or otherwise singled out as an individual; (A) (5) A use of an individual's persona by an institution of higher education if all of the following apply: (A) (5) (a) The individual is or was a student at, or a member of the faculty or staff of, the institution of higher education. (A) (5) (b) The use of the individual's persona is for educational purposes or for the promotion of the institution of higher education and its educational or institutional objectives. (A) (6) A use of the persona of an individual that is protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution as long as the use does not convey or reasonably suggest endorsement by the individual whose persona is at issue. (B) This chapter does not affect rights or privileges recognized under the Ohio Constitution or United States Constitution.
You've tagged this as both united-states and european-union, so this answer is about the United States. Before you can &quot;license&quot; someone to do something, you must first have the legal right to prevent them from doing it. Otherwise, your purported &quot;license&quot; is just a worthless piece of paper (technically, you might be able to sell those pieces of paper notwithstanding their lack of validity, so I suppose they wouldn't be completely worthless). If we imagine that the subject of a biography or autobiography wants to control the publication of that biography, there are a number of legal grounds that might be cited, depending on the circumstances: Copyright: The person who actually wrote the biography (who may or may not be the subject!) can prevent others from making copies or derivative works of it, as well as several other rights enumerated in 17 USC 106. Most publication agreements involve signing an exclusive license with the publisher. If the author has not signed such a license, then the biography is not going to be published in the first place. Regardless, copyright only exists once the work is &quot;fixed in a tangible medium&quot; (e.g. saved to a hard drive, written down on a piece of paper, etc.). If it's still &quot;in your head,&quot; then you don't own anything. If the subject and author are different people, then the subject does not have any rights here at all; copyright belongs exclusively to the author. Furthermore, copyright only protects the individual work. It does not prevent someone else from writing a different biography from scratch, so long as this second biography is original and does not reuse any content from the first biography. The underlying facts belong to no one. Privacy rights are generally handled as a tort under state law. If the subject is a public figure (i.e. the sort of person who's likely to have a biography written about them) then privacy rights tend to be rather limited. However, they are not nonexistent, and invasion-of-privacy claims are occasionally raised, usually in cases where highly personal, sensitive information is disclosed against the will of the subject. This may also become relevant if the author of the biography obtains information in an illegal fashion such as by hacking or physical trespass. However, in most cases, the content would need to be pretty far beyond the pale before this would have a realistic chance of succeeding. Personality rights are usually considered an extension or variety of privacy rights. In general, they allow the subject to prevent their name from being associated with a commercial endeavor without their permission. However, it is likely that the First Amendment would bar the application of personality rights to a biography, unless the publisher tried to misrepresent a ghostwritten work as an autobiography without the consent of the subject. Libel is a tort under state law. Libel laws in the US are extremely limited, and the subject would need to establish at least all of the following in order to succeed (or else the claim is barred by the First Amendment): The defendant published a statement. A reasonable person would interpret that statement as factual (and not an opinion, puffery, etc.). The statement is materially false (i.e. the &quot;gist or sting&quot; of the statement is false, regardless of whether it is technically 100% accurate). The statement harmed the reputation of the plaintiff. The defendant knew the statement was false, or made no serious effort to verify it (&quot;actual malice&quot;). Not required unless the plaintiff is a public figure, but the subject of a biography probably will be a public figure. There may be additional requirements depending on the state, and the defendant will probably try to file an anti-SLAPP motion if state law allows for it. Of these four rights, copyright is by far the most commonly &quot;licensed,&quot; followed by personality rights. Nobody gives out licenses to commit libel or invade their privacy. That leaves us with two ways of licensing your (auto)biography: Actually write it yourself, and sell it to a publishing company. You will give them a copyright license as part of the process (in exchange for royalties and an advance). Convince a publishing company to hire a ghostwriter for you, and then license your likeness to them. The public will be told that you &quot;wrote&quot; the book, and you will promote it in exactly the same way as if you did write it. Neither of these options will prevent someone else from coming along and writing their own biography about you, of course.
Trespass to chattel The TV is owned by the store or restaurant. You are not allowed to use it or manipulate it. So you commit Trespass to Chattel, which is &quot;the use of property without permission of the owner&quot; and a common law tort. To prove Trespass the store would need to show: You intended the trespass on the chattel, in this case, by turning off the TV. That can be proven by you owning the TV-B-Gone and using it. You deprived the owner's use of the chattel for a substantial time, which in the case of a sports bar might be any moment of the game, especially if the bar is allowed to run sports bets. in the case of the sports bet bar, you might even have created harm to something that the bar has a legitimate interest in. The Sports Bar might have the much easier case, while the store might not be able to prove the required deprivation of the chattel or damage caused by turning it off. Similarly, if a TV-B-Gone turns off a public CNN monitor at an airport though, you created harm because CNN would need to send a technician to turn it on again - the remote controls are only with the technicians, not in place. Do note that because of TV-B-Gones many such displays are installed in shielded boxes, or have been modified to not register to remote controls at all. Most sports bars don't even have a TV there, it's a computer monitor that is fed from a stream. However, if it's store advertisements... I doubt you turning it off would have caused the substantial deprivation to qualify as trespass to chattel. And while TV-B-Gone is just a tort... Don't you dare to run a cellphone jammer: Well, Cell-Phone-B-Gone could be done, but it’s illegal. One way to do it is to create a very low power fake cell transmitter, and the phone call would be gone. But disrupting a cell phone service is illegal in and of itself. - Mitch Altman, inventor of the TV-B-Gone in a 2006 interview
If the image is protected by copyright (as most modern images are), the uploading it as a profile picture or using it on a web site is copyright infringement unless one has permission from the copyright owner, or an exception to copyright applies. If copyright infringement occurs, the owner can sue for damages, or issue a takedown notice, or both, but does not have to do either. In the vast majority of cases, no one will do anything about such infringements if the owner (or the owner's authorized agent) does not. All the above is true in all of Europe and North America, ad in most other countries as well. Permission can be granted directly by the copyright owner to a user, or granted by the owner releasing the image (or other wrk) under a license. Google's general developer TOS Document](https://policies.google.com/terms#toc-content) reads (in relevant part): Google content Some of our services include content that belongs to Google — for example, many of the visual illustrations you see in Google Maps. You may use Google’s content as allowed by these terms and any service-specific additional terms, but we retain any intellectual property rights that we have in our content. Don’t remove, obscure, or alter any of our branding, logos, or legal notices. If you want to use our branding or logos, please see the Google Brand Permissions page. Other content Finally, some of our services give you access to content that belongs to other people or organizations — for example, a store owner’s description of their own business, or a newspaper article displayed in Google News. You may not use this content without that person or organization’s permission, or as otherwise allowed by law. The views expressed in other people or organizations’ content are theirs, and don’t necessarily reflect Google’s views. It would seem that each Google service has its own terms which indicate in what ways one may use Google content. It would further seem that content originally obtained from others and distributed by Google will have some set of permissions granted by the uploader. These must be checked for each image, I would think. There is no single one-rule-fits-all answer. I gather that the APIs will have methods for determining which images are from Google itself, and which from others, and some method for indicating the permissions that accompany an image. A user of these APIs must learn how to extract ownership and permissions metadata for an image obtained via the API, and how to use it (or not use it) in accordance with the available permissions. Now let us look at exceptions to copyright. These vary by country. Several European countries have an exception for &quot;personal use&quot; which might cover the profile pictures, but probably will not cover general use on a web site. There are exceptions for &quot;news reporting&quot; which might cover images illustrating recent news events. Some have exceptions for educational or instructional use. The UK (and several othe countries) have the concept of fair dealing which bundles several exceptions together. This might cover an image used in a personal profile, use of images in news reports, and limited educational use, but will probably not cover general use on a website. The US has the concept of fair use which is rather complex, but does not specifically include a &quot;personal use&quot; exception. See Is this copyright infringement? Is it fair use? What if I don&#39;t make any money off it? and other threads here tagged with fair-use for more on this. It is somewhat unlikely that any of these exceptions will cover general use on a web site of images obtained via Google APIs and used beyond the permissions listed in the metadata accompanying the image. But it will very much depend on the specifics of the case. If the image fetching is doe not by you in building a site or an app, but by your app's users who may then use them improperly, strictly speaking that is each user's own responsibility, you cannot effectively police what your users do, and have no duty to try. It will be a good practice if you include text explaining to your users that not all images are free for general use. You might want to link to the Google TOS. If the API returns metadata indicating the permissions status of each image fetched, yo0u might well want to provide this metadata in a useful form to your users. You might even want to allow a user to filter images obtained by permission status. But whether this is practical or useful to users will depend on the purpose and design of an app.
Copyright in the US is usually a civil matter. Meaning that the copyright owner can sue (typically for money damages or injunctive relief) an infringer. The criminal laws that we have are aimed at the reproducer and/or distributor. In other words, chances are that you won't get in any criminal trouble for accessing academic articles of dubious origin. But never say never. RIP Aaron Schwartz.
If you do not have permission to make and distribute reproductions of the work, then it is illegal to make and distribute reproductions of the work. US copyright law Indian copyright law
Not only can’t you trademark it, you can’t use it The original logo is covered by copyright which belongs, prima facie, to the original artist. It doesn’t matter that they are based in Russia; Russia and the US are both signatories to the Berne Convention which means they protect each other’s copyright. That means you can only use it if it is fair use (it isn’t) or if you have the copyright owner’s permission (you don’t). Could I still use the logo I bought and trademark it in the US granted that the seller had made some revisions to the stock photo he found? Not if the seller didn’t have permission to make those changes. Creation of a derivative work is one of the exclusive rights copyright gives. The seller had changed up some parts of the stock image, this includes color scheme, orientation, and made the picture look a little low poly. See above. The original artist of the stock photo is based in Russia and as far as I can see there is no registered copyright on it and don't think they could apply for US copyright anyway. They already have copyright. They would need to register it in the US before they could sue but there is no impediment to them doing so. While I'm not sure where the seller (located in Pakistan) officially downloaded the logo, I had nothing to do with the final design of it or downloaded anything from a stock photo website myself, so I'm not sure if I'd be bounded by any terms of the stock photo website Makes no difference. Just because you didn’t steal the car, that doesn’t make it ok for you to drive it. The stock image is very niche and a bit random. Across all the websites the artist has published it on, it has about 5 or 6 downloads altogether. Not relevant at all. As far the copyright of the seller's work goes, the Fiverr terms state that buyers have all the copyright, though I don't know if this is nullified by the use of the stock image. You can’t sell something you don’t own. If the seller had no right to upload the photo (as it seems they didn’t), the terms of the website don’t matter. The true owner never agreed to those terms and isn’t bound by them.