Can you get sued for someone else modifying a website you own? I own a website and domain and i've given someone access to modify it (developer). I am not a business and the person who has access is not paid for the job. Recently the person who has access uploaded swastikas on the website. I was asleep at the time, so the swastikas were public for about 1-2 hours, after that i immediately removed them and also removed the persons access to modify the site. I live in germany where it is illegal to use symbols like a swastika (StGB § 86a). Can i get sued for someone having put swastikas on my website for such a short period of time? And if yes, how bad would the punishment be? Thank you for your time.
I can't tell you there's nothing to worry about, but this sounds like a scam - possibly an attempt at blackmail. They may be looking to acquire your domain, or subsequent communication might ask for money for it all to go away. A local lawyer would be able to advise you far better than The Bloke On The Internet. Mention to them : That you were not responsible for the prohibited content That you removed the content as soon as was reasonably possible That you can provide details of the person you believe to be responsible (and, ideally evidence to show who posted the content, when it was posted, and when you deleted it) The lawyer may advise you to contact the local police. Tell them the same. It sounds like you are the victim here, and not the perpetrator.
Basically, statement 3 above is correct. The owner of the copyright in a work may release that work unmder different, even incompatible, licenses, as many times as s/he chooses to do. None of these releases cancels or invalidates any other. A person who obtains a work from a site where it is listed under a particular license, may rely on that license grant. The owner may (if the site allows) modify the license or remove the posted work, but this does not invalidate the license granted to those who obtained the work before any modification or removal. An incorrect or incomplete copyright notice does not, under current law. invalidate the copyright, and to the best of my understanding will not invalidate either of the license mentioen in the question.
It depends. Symbols which are not entitled to trademark protection in a market, usually because they are merely descriptive or generic or functional, are in the public domain and may be used by anyone, but a person using a descriptive or generic symbol can't prevent someone else from using the same symbol to promote their own business. For example, I can use the scales of justice symbol to promote my law practice on my law firm website. But, since that symbol is a generic one in the law firm market, I can't sue a competing law firm from using the same symbol on their website. The essence of a protectable trademark that an owner of can legally exclude competing firms in the same market from using, is that your firm manages to infuse into the distinctive affectation for which trademark protection is claimed with what is called "secondary meaning" to the words or image or other manifestation of the trademark when it is used in the market where the owner of the mark wants to obtain trademark protection. For example, descriptive trademarks are not eligible for trademark protection and are instead in the public domain and can be used by anyone in a market where the mark is descriptive. You can't gain a legally protected right to use the word "liquor" to describe a business that is engaged in selling liquor, and you can't gain a legally protected right to use the words "doughnut shop" for a business that sells doughnuts. But, if you use the words "doughnut shop" to describe a business that sells liquor or bras, rather than doughnuts, and those words come to be associated in the mind of the public with your particular chain of liquor stores or lingerie stores, then the words "doughnut shop" have acquired a "secondary meaning" which can be legally protected by trademark law allowing you to deny other businesses the right to use that trademark in the economic market where it has acquired a secondary meaning. (The scope of an economic market can be both geographic and conceptual related to the nature of the products sold. The manner in which an economic market is determined for a mark is beyond the scope of this answer or the original question.) The analysis with respect to symbols is analogous. You can't gain legal protections for using a common symbol in a manner that merely conveys its pre-existing common meaning. For example, if you use the hashtag sign # to mean "number" or "pound", that probably cannot be legally protected by trademark law. But, suppose that one particular firm (e.g. Twitter) uses the hashtag sign in a novel sense associated exclusively with a service that this particular firm provides, in a manner that is not semantically derived from its pre-existing meanings. In that situation, the firm might very well be permitted to claim trademark protection for the use of that common symbol in this new sense that has a "secondary meaning", which associates that symbol in a certain context exclusively with that firm, in the market where that firm does business. Similarly, you could probably not gain trademark protection for the common highway "yield sign" design to mean "yield" or be careful or some other similar semantic meaning. But, if you used the common highway yield sign to sell spaceships, and people came to associate that symbol with the spaceships sold by your particular firm, rather than with spaceships in general, you might be able to secure trademark protection for the yield sign symbol in that marketplace. It is easier to develop a "secondary meaning" for a distinctive and particular stylized presentation of either words in a particular script, or a variation on what would otherwise be a common symbol, than it is to develop a "secondary meaning" for generic words or a generic symbol that is has an existing meaning in other contexts. For example, while Apple could probably not have claimed trademark protection for an image of a clock spinning clockwise while the user has to wait while the computer is thinking about something, Apple's distinctive variant of this image (which some people call the "pinwheel of death") might very well be eligible for trademark protection.' The AppleOS pinwheel of death
If you form an LLC, and then someone later obtains a registered trademark in the same name, the registered trademark would be enforceable everywhere except in the markets and places where the LLC developed common law trademark rights prior to their registration. Your LLC formation would also put a bump in the road in their trademark application. You can, of course, do both, although it is unclear to me why you feel such urgency in the likelihood of an infringement, which suggests that there may be relevant facts that aren't revealed by your post.
Intellectual property law varies considerably by jurisdiction, and doesn't just involve copyright, but also trademarks, and patents. The first problem you are going to run into is that "Risko!" is probably protected as a commercial trademark rather than copyright. In the US at least, making minor changes to a trademark generally doesn't get you off the hook for unlicensed use. The owner of the "Risko!" trademark could bring suit against you for trademark infringement and it would be up to a judge or possibly a jury to decide whether "Risko" is different enough from "Risko!" that confusion would be unlikely. If they won the suit they could collect damages and their legal costs. There was a protracted and important trademark lawsuit in the US over the names "Monopoly" and "Anti-Monopoly" for board games. An economist, Ralph Anspach, had introduced a game he called "Anti-monopoly". He was sued by the Parker Brothers company for infringing on their trademark for "Monopoly". After 10 years the US Supreme Court ruled in Anspach's favor, finding that "Monopoly" had become a generic term for a type of board game and was no longer a valid trademark. You can't necessarily count on being "small potatoes" so that they'll simply ignore your possible infringement. In US law, failure to enforce their trademark rights can lead to the loss of trademark rights and remedies, so companies are less likely to let minor infringements slide. The situation in Italy may be different. Your artwork and graphical components are another potential problem. Those probably are covered by copyright. Again, the holder of the copyright for the "Risko!" artwork could sue you for violating their copyright on the artwork. A judge or jury would then evaluate whether your artwork was "derivative" of the "Risko!" artwork. If the court finds that your artwork is derivative, you might have to pay damages and legal costs. There are actually a ton of Risk inspired games already available online, but they seem to stay away from names that sounds anything like "Risk" and anything that looks like the Risk artwork.
As I understand it, you can pretty much sue anybody for anything. The question, of course, is would you win the suit? All the lawyers here can correct me, but I believe in order to win, you would have to Show standing, that is, they're your comments and not someone else's Show that it's a deliberate act, and not just someone accidentally clicked the wrong checkbox. Show that it was an act by the agency and not by Facebook, for example. Show that you've been singled out for your viewpoint (they allow some people's comments) Show that there is no other reason to delete your comments (they're obscene, or advocate for an illegal act, for example). I'm probably missing something else. The real question is, even if you could demonstrate all these things, would it be worth it? You may spend $1,000's and you might not recover your legal fees. The case might take years.
The part about "If I'm the owner of the content, surely I have the right to request its deletion" is the problem. Sure, you have the right to request, but you can't legally compel. You have an agreement with them, according to which you got something, and they got something. You can't then take back the thing that you gave them, which is permission to use. You didn't give them the IP itself, which you still hold. Here's an analogy. You may own a car, and can give a person permission to use the car (let's say "if you bring me back a pound of cheese from the store"). You cannot later change your mind (especially after you've gotten the cheese) a say that you retract that permission and therefore they actually stole your car. When permission to use is given, as long as the conditions for granting permission are satisfied, you can't un-give permission.
I agree that you have a very strong copyright fair use case. Although the logo is creative and you're using the entire thing, your use is for a nonprofit educational purpose and does not affect the value of the work. The logo is also probably trademarked. But you aren't using the mark in commerce, so I don't think that will be a problem for you.