Fair-use of mathematics educational YouTube series based on &quot;Byrne&#39;s Euclid&quot; (1847) and its latest renditions I want to create a mathematics educational video series on YouTube based on &quot;Byrne's Euclid&quot; (1847), which in turn, was a rendition of &quot;Euclid's Elements&quot; (circa 300 BC). The following are modern renditions of Byrne's Euclid: 1, 2, 3, and 4. I am only just starting to get familiarised with copyright and fair-use policies, so I just want to make sure that my video series doesn't violate any copyright laws. As far as I understand, considering its publication date, the copyright on Byrne's Euclid itself would be long expired and thus it would be in the public domain. However, I intend to essentially animate each proposition in a manner that is most similar in colour, style, fonts, etc. (although not exactly the same) to this rendition of Byrne's Euclid. However, the presentation of the propositions will be entirely different in that I want to minimise text, and maximise visual (animated) proofs of each proposition. Can someone advise me on whether I need to get copyright permission from the authors/creators of any of the above renditions? Or am I in the clear, considering the unique style in which I want to present each proposition?
The text and content (including all diagrams and illustrations) of the 1847 work (and of any other work published in 1847) are in the public domain in the US and everywhere in the world. You may freely use them verbatim or in any modified form that you wish. You are not even legally required to credit your source, although not to do so would be unethical, in my view. The version by Nicholas Rougeux that is linked to in the question has the licensing statement: Posters and website design are copyright Nicholas Rougeux. All other content and diagrams are under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license (CC BY-SA 4.0). This will not apply to any content copied from the 1847 version, of course. You may use any of the new content and diagrams so released, or make and use derivative works based on those elements, provided that you comply with the CC BY-SA 4.0 license. This has a number of provisions, but the major ones are that you must release your work under the same license, must acknowledge your source work, and must not impose any additional conditions or restrictions on users of your derived work. These are spelled out in sections 3.a and 3.b of the license (linked above). Please read the full terms if you intend to use this license. If this procedure will satisfy your purpose, you do not need any further permission from Nicholas Rougeux, nor to pay any fees or royalties to him. If you do not choose to place your work under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license, then you must not use the diagrams from Rougeux's version, nor modified versions directly based on them, nor an overall design clearly and directly based on the original design of that version, unless you secure permission from Rougeux (or the current copyright holder of Rougeux's version, whoever that may be). Given that Rougeux chose to release under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license, he may well be unwilling to grant permission under a different license, but that is his choice to make. Exception: in the US, you may use content from the Rougeux version to the limited extent permitted by fair use. This is not likely to cover the use of all or a large number of diagrams, particularly for a competing version of the same base work. Without specific information on how much content you would be using from that version, and how similar it would be to the original, no one can reliably determine if fair use would apply or not, but fair use is most likely to apply when a strictly limited amount of content is reused, and particularly when it is used for a different purpose than the original. Also, fair use is a strictly US legal content, and a work that might be held to be fair use by a US court might be considered an infringement by the courts of some other counties. Other countries have their own exceptions to copyright which are different in scope and terms from fair use. Many of them are significantly narrower. Note that a work posted to the internet is in effect published in all countries, and a copyright holder might choose to sue in any country s/he pleases. US courts might well enforce such a judgement even if it would not have been the judgement of a US court. Rogeux (or any other creator of a new edition) can have no copyright in elements already present in Byrne's 1847 work. Any similarity to Rogeux's work that is because of a similarity to Byrne's 1847 work is not copyright infringement. But any new elements introduced by Rogeux (or anyone else), including the manner of adding interactivity to a diagram, may well be protected by copyright (although the idea of having an interactive version of the diagram will not be). Any new or significantly modified text or diagrams introduced in a later version will be protected. As to any other versions of the 1847 &quot;Byrne's Euclid&quot; that may have been published, the publishers gain no copyright over the original 1847 work or any of its elements, including text, diagrams, or color scheme. Provided you do not use any original content newly introduced in such editions, you do not need to secure any permission from, or pay any fee to, the copyright holders of such editions. However, you may not use any such original content, or modified versions clearly based on such original content, without permission, unless an exception to copyright, such as fair use, applies. All that I said above about fair use would then apply. A copyright holder may grant or refuse permission to use a protected work or create a derivative work on any terms that s/he chooses, and charge any fee or royalty rate s/he thinks proper. Lack of response to a request for permission must be treated as if the response was &quot;No&quot;.
First of all, this is probably a poor idea even if it is legal. Verse, and song lyrics, are notoriously hard to translate well, and make poor examples for language learning, They tend to employ metaphor, allusive language, and idiom heavily, and will in many cases distort the sense of the language for the sake of rhyme, meter, or other auditory effects. But suppose you still want to go ahead. The developer of such an app could use songs old enough to be in the public domain. &quot;The Star-spangled Banner' for example is not protected by copyright. Neither is the French national anthem, the La Marseillaise. Most well-known songs published before 1900 will not be under copyright. But more recent songs will almost surely be protected. The use of a line or two from a song might well be permitted under fair use (in the US) or fair dealing (in those countries that recognize this exception to copyright). Use of the entire lyrics of any given song would be more questionable. The use for educational purposes would tend to favor the applicability of any such exception, but the availability of the whole lyric (or even a major part) might serve as a replacement for the original, and harm the market for the original. No one can ever be sure in advance if a given use will be ruled to be a fair use. That determination depends heavily on the specific facts of each case. It would avoid risk to use songs that are out of copyright, or short sections of songs, if songs are to be used at all.
The "Standard Youtube License" or TOS reads You shall not copy, reproduce, distribute, transmit, broadcast, display, sell, license, or otherwise exploit any Content for any other purposes without the prior written consent of YouTube or the respective licensors of the Content. That stipulates no "free usage" and as such, you cannot use a screenshot ("Content") without permission or license from the copyright owner anywhere in your own work or on a platform such as Wikipedia that requires permissions from the copyright owner. You are legally OK with (preferably written) approval and license from the creator for use of a screenshot on Wikipedia, because such an written agreement will satisfy Wikipedia's requirement of owner approval for the use of another creator's work on Wikipedia and gives you written permission and license to use the work on Wikipedia. Simply contact the copyright owner and ask for permission. If you do not have the owner's permission and still use a screenshot, and are confronted with copyright infringement by the owner or Wikipedia, your use of a screenshot may fall under Fair use. The important qualifier is may. You being able to prevail with a Fair use defense - worst case, if taken to court, or at very least, Wikipedia taking down the screenshot under a DMCA request - is not guaranteed, because a judge would make that decision, based on the evidence of the usage and their determination if, in fact, a screenshot is Fair use. Fair use (Chapter 1 - Circular 92 | U.S. Copyright Office) stipulates that usage is legally permissible when (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole is not considered to be substantial enough is an infringement of copyright of the whole work. Who determines what is what is "substantial enough"? A court. The court could take into account (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. in determining your usage is Fair use, or damages if the court rules against you. You do risk copyright infringement without clear permission from the copyright owner, and you risk Wikipedia being send a DMCA takedown notice. Whether or not you are the subject of a copyright infringement lawsuit is up to the copyright owner, and if that happens, whether you prevail is up to the court.
I'm pretty sure in France you have moral rights and copyrights. I am writing from New Zealand, but we have some similar intellectual property laws due to being member countries of the World Intellectual Property Organisation. We are also both member countries of the World Trade Organisation (WTO has the TRIPS agreement which relates to IP). So my answer may or may not be right &ndash; check what it says in France's copyright acts: you should be able to search for terms like first owner, and moral rights, films/videos, etc. The school isn't your employer, and so the basic rule is that you as the author are automatically the first owner. Since you're not really at school to create anything or research for the school, I don't think the court would enforce a blanket term that you had to agree to that the school owns intellectual property in what you create. You probably own the copyright. You also have moral rights in what you have created, which means even if the school does own the copyright in your work, you can request they attribute it to you if they show it in public (online). Not all works have moral rights. However, in NZ if you create a film/video you do have moral rights in it.
Well, actually, fair use is maximally relevant. Copyright means, put simply, DO NOT COPY. Citing or not is irrelevant (plagiarism is a whole other non-legal kettle of fish). Technically, what you describe is violation of copyright. However, under section 107 of Title 17 (the copyright law), you could attempt to defend yourself against an infringement suit on the basis that your action was "fair use". See this LSE q&amp;a for the essentials of fair use.
Short Answer No meaningful intellectual property protection is available for BCI calculus, BI calculus, or SK calculus. Long Answer Copyright Protection There are several categories of things that can’t be copyrighted. A common thread to most of them is that they lack the necessary creativity to be eligible for copyright. Ideas This includes procedures, processes, systems, methods of operation, concepts, principles, or discoveries. Plans, methods, and devices, are also not protectable. However the particular manner in which they are expressed or described in a writing can be copyrighted. (Source) Copyright can protect a particular expression of an idea (e.g. the layout and exact language of a page in a textbook about BCI calculus that is not the only possible way to present it), but not a concept or system like BCI calculus. The same reasoning means that it is probably not possible to copyright BI calculus or SK calculus, even though a particular textbook expressing them in a particular way might be possible to protect with copyright. Also, since BCI calculus is derived from publications in mathematics journals made in 1924 and 1930 by its two lead creators, anything derived from the original publications would probably be in the public domain by now. In the United States: every book and tale published before 1927 is in the public domain; American copyrights last for 95 years for books originally published between 1927 and 1978 if the copyright was properly registered and maintained. It is likely that the copyright for the 1930 journal article in question was not registered and maintained, as it was not routine practice for mathematical journals to do so at the time. Even if it was, the copyright for the 1930 paper would be almost spent and would expire in the year 2025. The Alternative Of Patent Protection Patents can protect ideas of ways to implement something, but also has limitations that probably exclude BCI calculus as something that could be patented: Certain things can never be patented, regardless of how well they meet these four standards. They include the elements, theoretical plans, laws of nature, physical phenomena, and abstract ideas. So patenting fire or the wheel is out, though some people have tried. (Source) Any patent received for BCI calculus prior to the year 2002 would also have expired bringing the subject matter of the patent into the public domain. Also, since BCI calculus is something that has already been disclosed to the public, it is barred from patentability as a form of existing prior art. The existence of prior art would also prevent BI calculus and SK calculus from being patented. Trade Secret Protection Considered It also probably isn't possible to protect BCI calculus (or BI calculus or SK calculus) as a trade secret, because it has been disclosed to the public and hence isn't secret. (Source) Trade Mark Protection Considered It might be possible to protect the name &quot;BCI calculus&quot; as a trademark under which services teaching people to use it are marketed, but that wouldn't protect the underlying system or concepts. But there is a strong argument that this would not even qualify as a trademark because it is merely descriptive and does not have a &quot;secondary meaning&quot; particular to a particular user of the label for the system.
There is a subtle difference between NSF policy and enforceable obligation. The primary stick that goes with the carrot is being excluded from future funding. Current policy does not generally force material in the public domain, but it is a possibility in "exceptional circumstances". There no doubt is a paper record somewhere in D.C. indicating whether such a codicil was added to any of these grants. NSF generally does not have contracts with individuals, they have contracts with institutions who have relations (typically employer-employee) with individuals, so even if there were a policy requiring works to be put in the public domain, NSF would have to go after the institution, who would have to go after the author. Since that would conflict with longstanding NSF policy on copyright, it is unlikely that they would want to pursue such an approach. The statement that McGraw-Hill Book Company announces that the material, which is copyrighted, will be available for use by authors and publishers on a royalty-free basis on or after April 30, 1970 is not itself a license, it is a suggestion that a license will com into existence. A present-tense declaration "this work is dedicated to the public domain effective April 30, 1970" can be interpreted as a license effective of a date certain. Similarly, "will be available to all publishers for use in English after December 31, 1970, and in translations after December 31, 1975" does not say that it is in the public domain effective of some date. One might say that the copyright statement is simply not well written and the author really intended the books to be in the public domain as of those dates. But without compelling evidence that the book was actually released into the public domain, a court is very unlikely to abrogate a person's property rights.
united-states The composition of a photograph, a painting, or an image of any sort is one of the elements that can be protected by copyright, and indeed one of those aspects that make an image original and thus a proper subject of a copyright under US law. A new image that imitates the original and distinctive composition of another might be held to be a derivative work, and thus an infringement of copyright if done without permission. Note that the composition must be original. A photo of, say, two people standing side-by-side has been done many times, and would probably not have any distinctive element of composition. The images shown as part of the question look rather distinctive to me, but for all I know this is a cliche that has been done over and over. If this came to an actual lawsuit a defendant could present evidence showing the composition to have been previously used by others, and thus common coin, free for anyone to adopt. This would be similar to the Scènes à faire concept. Things that have been done over and over are not original and are thus not protectable by copyright. That would ultimately be a judgement for the court to make, dependent on the facts of a specific case. I suspect this answer is correct for the laws of many countries, but I can only confirm it for US copyright law.