Use material without permission for educational purposes For a school project I created a website. The website is public, therefore anyone can access it if they know the address. On my website I use images that I don't have permission to use. (Found on with Google image search) Would the owner of the images be able to sue me? The images are solely used for educational purposes, and I don't make any money from the website. (I live in Denmark, EU)
http://www.wipo.int/edocs/lexdocs/laws/en/dk/dk091en.pdf is the Copyright Law in English for Denmark. You should probably try to find a Danish version to ensure the translation is accurate. Chapter 2 lists the exemptions from the general rule that you need the copyright owner's permission to use their IP. Unfortunately, the usage you have made does not meet the requirements for private use (s12): digital copies may only be shared among the members of one household, placing them on the web extends beyond your household. It may meet the requirements of educational use (s13) providing that your school has met the requirements for Extended Collective Use (s50). For photographs, this seems unlikely, such arrangements are usually limited to songs and television works. Under Chapter 6b, you are permitted to use "orphaned works", however, this requires that you have made a diligent search for the owners and have been unable to either identify or locate them. Copyright violation is subject to both penal sanctions (fines and in egregious violations imprisonment) (s76) and damages (s83). TL;DR Yes, you could be sued. Yes, the copyright holder would probably be successful. No, it is extremely unlikely they would bother.
In the abstract, two businesses that cooperate in violating a third party's copyright could both face liability. Applying that information to the facts you gave would amount to legal counsel. If you don't want to tell the client 'no,' you should speak to a lawyer about your potential liability. Beyond the legalities, do you really want your portfolio to advertise that you design sites by ripping other sites off?
You automatically have a copyright in any copyritable things you create. So you own copyright over the pictures you sent him (as long as you created them)
This appears to be very clear to me: "NPR does not allow other websites to post our content..." I cannot think of a more clear way to say "Do not reproduce our content on your site." Since you asked about licensing the right to reproduce their content, and they flatly ignored your request, I think it is safe to assume that they are not interested in licensing that right to you, even for a fee. This is also consistent with their "NPR does not allow [any] other websites to post..." language. It is always the copyright holder's right to refuse to offer any particular person (or all persons generally) a license, no matter what payment they might offer. (With the exception of statutory licenses, which in the U.S. exist only for recording covers of musical works.) They have also ignored your request to recompense them for infringement already performed. If in the future they decide to take legal action against you for your past infringement (hugely unlikely that such a hassle would be worthwhile for NPR) or seek any out of court settlement (again, quite unlikely they will care enough), I'm sure they will let you know. As they've said in their email, you are welcome to link to NPR's content. You are, of course, not welcome to spread misinformation or lies about NPR by claiming something like, "Look at this wonderful article that NPR wrote purely for us, at our personal request," or "NPR thinks that In Home Teaching Agency XXX is a great company, so we built a curriculum around their content," when NPR has never said any such thing. Any legal issue around linking would probably be a trademark offense, by wrongfully suggesting that NPR endorses you, or by misrepresenting yourself as an agent of NPR. If you don't do either of things, and just say, "Here's an article on [subject X] published by NPR," you're probably fine. If you want to be very thorough, you could include a disclaimer on your site like, "In Home Teaching Agency XXX is not a licencee or partner of NPR. Links to NPR articles are included for educational purposes only," or similar. This seems pretty excessive to me, since a reasonable person won't assume that linking to an article from a major news source suggests a partnership, but I suppose it couldn't hurt to include such a disclaimer.
The reason is 17 USC 106: the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following... (2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work The original picture is the underlying protected work. The ASCII reproduction is a derivative work. If you get permission to make the derivative work, it is okay. Otherwise, it is copyright infringement. There is an escape clause, "fair use", which amounts to taking a chance that you won't be sued and then arguing that you didn't do them any prohibited harm. If you make any money off of the game, you have a major strike against you. I suggest reading the fair use FAQ; basically, it is really hard to know how a fair use defense will fare, but based on prior cases, I'd say it's infringement, not fair use.
Article 19 of Swiss copyright law says that "Published works may be used for private use" (emphasis added), though excludes computer programs from that exception. "Private use" is defined to include not only private use, it extends to use by friends and relatives, and in educational settings. But, para 3 say that except for personal use including that by friends and relatives, you cannot copy art, music, record performances, or copy substantially from works commercially available. (Confusing perhaps because the law refers to using versus copying). The law does not explicitly permit copying for personal use, but it does not prohibit it (whereas para 3 does explicitly prohibit other kinds of copying). Art. 20 then says that you do not have to pay for a copy made for personal use (para 1), but if you "use" a work in a private use context though not the personal use context defines in 19(1)(a), you have to pay. So the letters and numbers are there to allow you to distinguish whether it's legal to use, to copy, and whether you have to pay. This final sentence in Art. 19 Copies which are made by accessing works that are lawfully made available are neither subject to the restriction of private use under this Article nor are they included in the claims for remuneration under Article 20. is confusing. Pirate sites are not themselves legal in Switzerland, and a person who downloads from them is not accessing works that are lawfully made. But still, personal use is legal, copying in that context is legal, and no remuneration is owed, and the law does not restrict personal use copying to only legal sources.
It is not possible to say that this is generally fair use, although sometimes it would be. A copy for personal use is still a copyright right violation on its face, and fair use does not categorically exclude non-commercial or personal use of copyrighted works. It is a highly fact specific inquiry. The likelihood of anyone discovering that you have done so and deciding to sue over it is slight, but that doesn't mean that there isn't potential copyright infringement liability. Compare this to speeding. People do it all the time, and even driving one mile per hour above the speed limit is still a traffic violation. But it is rare for less serious violations to be ticketed.
If you are using just the names, there is no issue - you can't copyright a fact. If you are using actual images (you appear to say you are not, but you also asked "Am I allowed to include images of Google Maps) - then the answer is still yes within your usage case - provided you attribute them to Google. If you look at this link it specifies that you are OK to use this in Reports and Presntations, Books which are not guidebooks and which have less then 5000 copies and presentations. If you are using them online, you need to use the imbedded versions (ie you can't just screenshot them - you need to link to them). If you are still unsure, you can contact streetview-academic@google.com to request specific permission.