Legally Using NASA Material NASA's ISS live feed is center to an app that I am developing. I am wondering if it is copyright infringement to embed the live stream in my app. I think that it might be ok to use it because according to US copyright law, any US government work is not protected under copyright law. First of all, is this true? Second, because NASA is part of the US government, does that mean that NASA's ISS live stream is owned by the US government, and therefore not protected by copyright law?
It is true that any work of the US government is not subject to copyright in the United States; it may be subject to copyright abroad (the relevant law excludes US government works from US copyright protection; other countries have their own copyright laws that generally don't explicitly exclude US government works, and so the works may be copyrighted there). A government work is defined as something produced by a government employee in the course of his official duties. It doesn't include everything released by a government agency; for instance, if a contractor makes something and the contract specifies that the government gets the copyright, the work is copyrighted (since it wasn't made by a government employee). If a foreign cosmonaut or astronaut composes and sings an original song in a livestream, then NASA may not have copyright in the livestream but the foreign astronaut would have copyright in the song. That said, NASA has a page of guidelines for reuse of their media, where they say that their stuff normally isn't copyrighted unless otherwise noted. They don't make any sort of guarantee, but they suggest you'd probably be fine embedding it, at least as far as they're concerned.
According to EU case law, everything in your scenario is legal except if Example Site is hosting the image without authorization and Pirate Site is a for-profit site, then Pirate Site is presumed to be violating Article 3 of the Copyright Directive on communication to the public (in this scenario, Example Site is also trivially violating Article 2 on the right to reproduction). In Meltwater, Case C-360/13, the court ruled that browser cache and on-screen copies fell under the temporary reproduction exception, Article 5(1) of the Copyright Directive. This means that the visitor is not infringing copyright (IPKat reference). In BestWater, Case C-348/13, the court ruled that embedding content was itself not a communication to the public when that content was hosted with rightsholder authorization, and so did not violate Article 3. This means that Pirate Site is not infringing on communication to the public rights (it is also not creating a copy itself, so is not breaking Article 2) (IPKat reference). When content is not hosted with authorization, the situation is quite a bit more nuanced. GS Media, Case C-160/15, is the controlling case. Here, the court ruled that if a link (note it doesn't even have to be embedded/hotlinked) is posted by a for-profit site, that site is expected to have done its due diligence to ensure the linked content is hosted legally. Therefore, it is presumed to be violating Article 3, i.e., the burden of proof is on the link posting site to demonstrate that it had done its due diligence in verifying the legality of the linked content. So in this scenario, Pirate Site is presumed to be infringing on communication to the public rights (IPKat reference - WARNING: slightly NSFW image here, Playboy was one of the parties to the case).
Each episode of the show as a whole, and all the individual images in it, are protected by copyright, but the idea of a holophonor, or indeed any idea, is not. The more closely anyone else's drawing of a gadget resembles one from the show, the more likely it would be to be found to infringe copyright. The same is true of a character image. The more distinctive and original the image, and the more closely someone copies it, the more likely a finding of infringement would be.
The Google terms of service do not prohibit using their translate programs to create something that you sell. TOS for using their API would be irrelevant, since that isn't what you're doing. There is no clear copyright issue: as far as I can tell, there is not yet any case law suggesting that the output of a program can be owned by the copyright-holder of the program. (Copyright must be held by a legal person, i.e. an actual person or a corporation, and a program cannot yet be a legal person). A human-performed translation is subject to copyright protection since what is protected is that which is created by the (translating) author, and a program lacks that creative element. A translation owes its existence to the program-user using a particular tool to create the work, be it a pen or a translation program. What is unclear at present is whether a person using machine translation in a permitted fashion to create a derivative work thereby gains copyright to that derived work.
&quot;Personal use only&quot; does not excuse copyright infringement under US law. The uploader does not hold copyright, and neither gives nor denies permission to copy his creation. The law does not require a copyright holder to deny permission, it requires the user to actually obtain permission. So no matter how you slice it (even as fair use) it is infringement for you to copy that video.
united-states Facts are not copyrightable. Assuming Scrapehero collected these facts in a legal manner and assuming the source of these facts does not contain copyrighted (protected) material, then selling such a collection may be legal. Of particular relevance is Feist Publications, Inc., v. Rural Telephone Service Co.. Here, Feist Publications copied Rural's phone directory into Feist's own phone directory. The supreme court found that Rural's phone directory was not copyrightable and thus not protected. Of course, this cuts both ways. Assuming Scrapehero did not inject creativity into the data, nothing stops a recipient of such data from distributing it themselves. In practice, this probably isn't a concern for Scrapehero. This answer is US-specific. Some countries recognize Database Rights, which may prevent such activity.
I'm not sure this would be a copyright violation. 17 USC 117 says: (a)Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy.—Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided: (1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner... Due to the shutdown of the license server, it is impossible to use the program without an adaptation. It is therefore an "essential step in the utilization of the computer program", and not infringing, in my opinion.
It probably is infringement, assuming that this is being done by copying parts of a broadcast of the game. It is up to the holder of the copyright on the original broadcast that is being condensed to decide whether to sue or take other action, such as a takedown notice. Perhaps the holder thinks this is good advertising for its business. They have the right to make that decision. Now if a person went to the game, and used a personal camera to film it, and posted excepts of that recording, the legal issues would be very different. The ticket probably includes a provision prohibiting filming and photography, so this would be a breech of contract. But it would not be copyright infringement. (In practice if this were spotted, the person would be required to stop recording or leave, at least.)