What is the rationale behind fair use exemptions? "Fair use" is one exemption that allows the use of copyrighted material. From what I understand, this exemption falls into one of two broad categories: Teaching, research, news reporting, etc. Basically, this is "educational" use of one sort or another. Although there may be a commercial purpose (for a college, research lab, newspaper), etc., there is a public policy priority of informing people. The second category is comment, criticism, or parody. Here, the use is clearly commercial, but is often allowed. My understanding is that's because such work is protected under free speech, and perhaps opens new markets (e.g. among people who are "anti" a given work, and who probably wouldn't purchase the original). On the other hand, certain other "derivative works" are not considered fair use, even though they may be at least somewhat "commentative," and also have educational value. Why might that be? That is, how might they differ (legally) from items in (2) above?
It is complicated to answer why a law is what it is. Judge Frank Esterbrook writes (in the forward to Reading Law by Scalia and Garner): Every legislator has an intent, which usually cannot be discovered, since most say nothing before voting on most bills; and the legislature is a collective body that does not have a mind; it "intends" only that the text be adopted, and statutory texts usually are compromises that match no one's first preference. If some legislators say one thing and others something else, if some interest groups favor one outcome and others something different; how does the interpreter choose which path to follow? I will provide the historical background leading to the current fair use statute and case law, but take from it what you will as to why it is what it is. Fair use is a statutory defence provided by 17 USC 107. Its application is clearly demonstrated in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 510 U.S. 569 (1994). Fair use was an "exclusively judge-made doctrine until the passage of the 1976 Copyright Act". (Campbell) Courts had been finding exceptions for "fair abridgements" and other precursors to fair use as far back as under the Statute of Anne of 1710. (Campbell, citing William Patry's "The Fair Use Privilege in Copyright Law".) This doctrine worked its way into US case law in the nineteenth century. In Folsom v. Marsh, 9 F. Cas. 342 (No. 4,901) (CCD Mass. 1841)1, Justice Story distilled the essence of law and methodology from the earlier cases: "look to the nature and objects of the selections made, the quantity and value of the materials used, and the degree in which the use may prejudice the sale, or diminish the profits, or supersede the objects, of the original work." (Campbell) Folsom states: There must be real, substantial condensation of the materials, and intellectual labor and judgment bestowed thereon; and not merely the facile use of the scissors; or extracts of the essential parts, constituting the chief value of the original work. This early incorporation of fair use focused on whether something new was being created, or whether the "chief value" of the original work was being taken. This primary focus on transformativeness has stuck with with fair use doctrine until today. Campbell said (internal citations removed): The central purpose of this investigation is to see, in Justice Story's words, whether the new work merely supersedes the objects of the original creation ("supplanting" the original), or instead adds something new, with a further purpose or different character, altering the first with new expression, meaning, or message; it asks, in other words, whether and to what extent the new work is "transformative". Although such transformative use is not absolutely necessary for a finding of fair use, the goal of copyright, to promote science and the arts, is generally furthered by the creation of transformative works. Such works thus lie at the heart of the fair use doctrine's guarantee of breathing space within the confines of copyright, and the more transformative the new work, the less will be the significance of other factors, like commercialism, that may weigh against a finding of fair use. Campbell also includes the following statement of rationale for why Congress included section 107: Congress meant § 107 "to restate the present judicial doctrine of fair use, not to change, narrow, or enlarge it in any way" and intended that courts continue the common-law tradition of fair use adjudication. H. R. Rep. No. 94-1476, p. 66 (1976) (hereinafter House Report); S. Rep. No. 94-473, p. 62 (1975) (hereinafter Senate Report). There is no support for your separation of "parody, comment, and criticism " from "teaching, research, and news reporting", or that there are differing amounts of commercial use allowed for these types of work. The statute lists together "criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research" as examples purposes. The statute requires that "whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes" be considered in all fair use cases. There is also very little if any First Amendment rationale expressed for the fair use doctrine. The intersection of the First Amendment and copyright law is more clearly found in the idea/expression dichotomy. 1. Folsom v. Marsh full opinion text
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 cannot claim copyright protection of the underlying work, but you can claim protection for your contribution. Under 17 USC 101, the resulting work is a derivative work: A “derivative work” is a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a “derivative work”. As an "original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression", the work is protected by copyright law: but that only applies to the modifications that you added.
Regardless of the license associated with a document, there is no copyright protection on information. Copyright protection prevents copying "expression", e.g. the wording, but not the facts / opinions expressed through those words. The non-legal academic concept of "plagiarism" is where the notion of attribution primarily comes into play. There is a special exception under 17 USC 106A that imposes an attribution requirement for works of visual art. CC and other license schemes may add in an attribution requirement for actual copying of the expression (the "BY" attribute in CC). If a work is licensed under CC-BY, you may copy the actual expression provided that you follow the terms of the license, which primarily means that you have to attribute the work in the prescribed manner. This does not apply to extracting information from a work, because information is not protected by copyright.
The first question is whose law you are concerned with, since in principle you might have violated copyright law in any country, and might be sued under the laws of multiple countries. The US has a concept of "fair use" which is notoriously difficult to apply. When you are sued in the US, you can defend against the allegation by arguing certain things: telegraphically, this includes purpose and character of use, nature of the work, substantiality in relation to the whole, and effect on market. Plus there is a 5th factor to be considered, transformativeness. The court then weighs these factors to decide if the use is "fair". By reading existing case law on the topic (conveniently available from the US Copyright office) you might develop a fact-based opinion of the risk: you would be vastly better off hiring an attorney who specializes in US copyright law to do an analysis for you. Do not hire a programmer to give you legal advice (do not hire an attorney to debug code). You would "fail" on the test of substantiality in that you are copying a highly substantial portion of the original work(s). You would "win" on nature of use (research especially non-profit and commentary are the underlying purposes that drive fair use law). It's not clear how you would fare w.r.t. nature of the work, which is intended to distinguish the extremes "news report" and "literature and artistic work" where copying news is at the fair use end of the spectrum. It is not clear how you would fare on "effect on market", but probably not so badly: are you avoiding some licensing fee? Coupled with the tranformativeness consideration, you are most likely having no effect on the market, since the product that you will distribute is not the original work, but a scientific conclusion about the work. Germany has different laws, and this article would be relevant if you cared about Germany. There was a change in the law that expanded the analog of fair use pertaining to research use. That law allows 15 percent of a work to be reproduced, distributed and made available to the public for the purpose of non-commercial scientific research. That, b.t.w., does not refer to what you are planning to do (unless you also publish quotes); for personal scientific research you may reproduce up to 75 percent. Since this is a new law only a year old, you could become part of the cutting edge in testing the limits of the law. So the standard disclaimer applies: ask your attorney. But note section 60d of the law which legalized data mining, and is squarely on point: (1) In order to enable the automatic analysis of large numbers of works (source material) for scientific research, it shall be permissible to reproduce the source material, including automatically and systematically, in order to create, particularly by means of normalisation, structuring and categorisation, a corpus which can be analysed and to make the corpus available to the public for a specifically limited circle of persons for their joint scientific research, as well as to individual third persons for the purpose of monitoring the quality of scientific research. In such cases, the user may only pursue non-commercial purposes. (2) If database works are used pursuant to subsection (1), this shall constitute customary use in accordance with section 55a, first sentence. If insubstantial parts of databases are used pursuant to subsection (1), this shall be deemed consistent with the normal utilisation of the database and with the legitimate interests of the producer of the database within the meaning of section 87b (1), second sentence, and section 87e. (3) Once the research work has been completed, the corpus and the reproductions of the source material shall be deleted; they may no longer be made available to the public. It shall, however, be permissible to transmit the corpus and the reproductions of the source material to the institutions referred to in sections 60e and 60f for the purpose of long-term storage.
The campaign is a copyrighted work distinct from any work it contains Consider this answer - even though it’s made up of uncopyrightable words, the particular arrangement of those words is a copyrighted work. The same is true of an arrangement of pictures. While the competitor is free to use the pictures, they can’t use the campaign. The ironic version is fine providing it is a true parody. Parody is an fair use under copyright law.
First, the press release is copyrighted from its inception and may have been work for hire (a close call since you wrote them for an LLC and the LLC had a deal with them). There is a copyright in someone, although the absence of a copyright notice limits the remedies available for infringement. Second, a link is not a copyright violation. Third, copyright protects an exact manifestation of an idea or description of a fact, not the idea or fact itself. Fourth, there are two different doctrines that could protect an exact copy of a press release. One of two doctrines, which applies if the press release has been released to the public, is an implied license. Press releases are meant for the general public and reprinting them when that is their intended purpose is an implied grant of permission. In the same way, if you have an unfenced front yard to a concrete path leading to your front door, anyone who wishes to meet with you has an implied license to walk up to your door and knock. Whether this implied license can be revoked or not is a harder question. The other of the two doctrines, which is not limited to press releases that have been released, is "fair use". In this situation, when the work was short, has been released to others, has limited literary value, transmits unprotected facts relevant to you, relates facts that may also be a matter of public record (the sale anyway), and you aren't trying to profit from the text of the press releases themselves just from the facts that they convey, the case for fair use is pretty decent even though this is a business use. Ultimately, however, to be squeaky clean and avoid litigation, you can link rather than regurgitate the press releases, and can write your own statements about the facts in them from scratch. This information is not privileged or trademarked. If you didn't sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) or if they were released to the public, they aren't subject to trade secret protection either. If they were only released to the customer whose sale was involved and there is an NDA they could conceivably be trade secrets but even then the case would be very weak since the information doesn't create value by virtue of being kept secret.
First, copyright does not apply to "brands". Copyright exists in literary works which includes art - a picture (any picture) usually has a copyright belonging to the creator of the picture. Brands are protected by Trade Marks. To be clear: A picture of you is protected by copyright belonging to the creator The phrase "Mickey Mouse" is protected by trade mark belonging to the Disney corporation A picture of Micky Mouse is protected by copyright and trade mark. (when) would it be legally OK for me to do so without the copyright owner's permission? You can use copyright material without permission if you meet the fair use criteria in your jurisdiction. You can use trade marks if there is no risk of people confusing your goods and services with the trade mark holder's and you do not cause damage (including loss of potential income) to the trade mark holder or it is fair use (e.g. you are writing a review of a Micky Mouse cartoon). Is it legal if I do not distribute them to others at all? No, this would be OK as copyright fair use, but not as trade mark fair use. Is it legal if I give them to my family/relatives for free, e.g. as a gift? No, not fair use for either copyright or trade mark. Is it legal if I give them away to others for free (meaning I'm losing my own money on them)? No, see above. Is it legal if I sell them to others at-cost (i.e. for the same price I obtained them, meaning I'm not making any money from them)? No, see above. If the answer is "yes" to any of the above, can the copyright holder explicitly prohibit me from doing so, or would such a prohibition be unenforceable (e.g. if this would be fair use)? It isn't allowed. Yes they can stop you. No, it isn't fair use; there is no "fair use" defence for trade mark infringement here - you are depriving them of income because you are not buying their T-shirt! Any other factors that are relevant but which I'm forgetting? Will they sue you for doing these things? Probably not.