In the US, is it legal for me to commercially advertise a photograph that I took myself of a bottle of Coke? Where would I find in https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html for example or other legal text whether it is legal for me to publish my photograph of a bottle of Coke for use to sell that bottle of Coke in my advertisement that I created, all commercially?
Yes it would be legal to do so. A full analysis would look at trademark law (where the bottom line is that the use of the Coke mark is not misleading since you are selling bona fide Coke), and copyright law. Whether it was non-infringing or fair use, is a closer call, but there is little doubt that one way or the other, this would be legal.
Unfortunately the answer is a vague "it depends." Commercial versus non-commercial is not clearly defined in actual law, and is usually up to the specific license to define what it considers to be commercial use. If you were putting them on your business cards, then it's just being used for advertising and whether it's commercial use is a bit controversial. If the license explicitly prohibits the use of the work in advertising, then the license should explicitly mention that and should not rely on the term "commercial use" to cover or protect it. Creative Commons ran an excellent study on commercial versus noncommercial use back in 2009: Defining “Noncommercial” - A Study of How the Online Population Understands “Noncommercial Use” In the United States, for example, the Copyright Act does not define a copyright owner’s rights in terms of commercial or noncommercial use. Instead, copyright law sometimes attaches legal significance to whether a use is “commercial” or “noncommercial” or whether a user is deemed to be a commercial or noncommercial entity, However, rarely are the terms defined, and the law offers no specific guidance on how to differentiate between commercial and noncommercial uses or users of copyrighted works. If you were putting them on a business card you were making for the client, then that would be more clearly identified as commercial use because you're using it in something you are selling for a profit. What your client will be using them for is not relevant, because you're the one selling them to the client and you need to have the right to be able to do that.
Yes So far so good. This is a copyright violation but it is probably fair use - certainly there is case law permitting a copy of a backup digital asset to be made so I don’t see why a similar argument wouldn’t work with backing up a physical book. Clear copyright violation. Alice can rent out the original under the first sale doctrine but the ‘backup’ is not so protected. It’s not fair use because it’s use is commercial, the work is a type of work the author expects to profit from, the entire work has been copied and the use is deleterious to the market i.e. the renters are less likely to buy an original - it falls foul of all four factors of the fair use test.
The simple way is to post a picture of you and the widget to a site like Flickr. A more expensive way (but with rather more weight) is to get a Notary to certify they saw you and the widget on January 9th. Both the above provide evidence you had access to the widget before January 10th, but neither prove you owned it. For that, you would need a dated (possibly even notarized) bill of sale or similar - but if you acquired the widget via a gift, that won't work. A signed witness statement from the giver would probably serve (and the statement could legitimately be created when you are prosecuted). None of the above are unforgeable - but you don't need that. Depending on how the law is written, you will only need to show ownership on the balance of probabilities, or you might only need to show reasonable doubt that you didn't own it on 9th January.
The band's logo can be protected by both copyright and trademark. The band's name is probably only protected as a trademark. Trademark would not apply to your personal use, because to infringe a trademark, you need to "use" the mark, and "use" in trademark law generally means selling an item that has the mark on it. As far as trademark law is concerned, no sale means no infringement. Copyright protects the exclusive right of the owner to copy a "work" (it's much more complex than that, but we don't need to get into the details here). Copyright probably applies because you would "copy" the logo, which under copyright law is something only the copyright owner can do (absent authorization from the copyright owner). You would therefore theoretically be infringing copyright by copying the bands logo on a shirt or something you want to wear yourself. That said, while I agree with the first answer that fair use may apply in theory, there would never ever be such a complex discussion about fair use in this case... because in fact there's absolutely no chance an individual would get fined or sued for having copied a band's logo and name on something he/she wants to wear his/herself. Getting sued by the band The band will not notice. If you're lucky enough to meet the band (or somebody close to the band) in person while you are wearing your garment, they would either not notice or not care. At worst, they'll ask you where you bought it in case they suspect you bought it from someone who illegally sells fake merch. Even then, all of this seems very unlikely. If you are extremely unlikely and the band notices it and sues you (and finds a lawyer to take a case like that to court), my inclination is to think the judge would be extremely mad with the band (and its lawyer) for losing the court's time with such a trivial matter. No judge would allow lawyers to waste the court's time pleading such a complex thing as fair use in a case like that. Getting fined The police would not notice either, because the only time the police cares about copyright is when somebody makes a complaint (nobody would make a complaint about you), except when they seize containers full of copyright infringing stuff (that is destined to be illegally sold for profit) in a port or at a border somewhere. The only possible scenario where I could imagine that there would be legal consequences is if you wear a t-shirt with the bands logo in a YouTube video (or in a picture) where the only thing that you see basically is the bands logo on your t-shirt. Even this scenario is extremely far fetched, but let's say the video becomes popular and the band notices. Well, the likeliest scenario is that they would file a DMCA notice and get YouTube to take down the video, with very little chances that there would be more important consequences to you. Have fun!
The store is, as far as i can see, not using the trademarked image to sell their cake. Your family does not intend to sell anything at all. This photo, from the description, could not reasonably be confused with an official image from the trademark holder. (all of this is based on your description, of course). Therefore, the trademark holder probably won't sue for trademark infringement, even if they somehow heard of this event, and if they did sue, they would quite likely lose. You would be making a copy of a presumably copyrighted image. You might have an active defense, but that is very hard to be sure of in advance. (Note that "fair use" is a very specifically US legal concept, and would not apply in the UK. The roughly comparable concept is "fair dealing" but that is more restrictive, and follows somewhat different rules.) In any case, it is possible that the rights holder would sue, and if the situation were a bit different (the was only one person pictured, making the shirt with the protected image very prominent, for example) there might be a larger chance of such a suit being successful. No business is going to want a bakery department manager deciding whether a particular use of a particular image does or does not infringe IP rights, and whether it does or does not expose the business to significant risk. Just to get an opinion from their lawyer on whether this image infringes would probably cost them several times the price of the cake with image printing. The store has no doubt written its guidelines to err well on the side of caution, because one suit, even if they won, would cost far more than the profits of many cakes, and if they lost, could have a very negative effect on their bottom line indeed. The store is entitled to restrict what business it does to keep itself safe from lawsuits. It is going to keep well on the cautious side, in all likelihood, and so it should. I fear you will have to find a store with a different policy, or use a different picture.
You can basically take pictures of anything from your property if it is "public" (i.e. easily visible from your property). People on the road are in public, and have no reasonable expectation of privacy. The basic restrictions on photography are (1) you cannot trespass (you aren't), and (2) you cannot take pictures of certain government operations (e.g. airport border crossing – certain aspects of government prohibition may require lawsuit to rein in government policy that is at odds with the 1st Amendment; also secret military installations, for which there is specific law, 18 USC 795). Commercial exploitation of people who you photograph is strongly protected in California, and that is it.
It would probably not be defamation unless it was obvious that it was somehow a very direct metaphor for a real situation. You must, at a minimum, be implying something about reality for something to be defamatory. This would be quite a stretch. You might, however, be liable for commercial appropriation of someone's identity and owe them compensation in much the same way that you have to pay a model damages if you use model's picture for a commercial purpose. The appropriation need not be limited to the physical aspects of someone's appearance and might include also, for example, distinctive use of language or aspects of personal history and life.