Does publishing a copyrighted painting, for the purpose of making fun of the artist, constitute parody? (USA) I want to write a short story that re-imagines the lives of several prominent artists, and uses their paintings to tell a new, fictional, story of their lives. An example would be using Picasso paintings to tell a story about how he was actually a famous musician, and then using that platform to make fun of both Picasso and musician culture. The paintings would serve as a reference point for how the story relates to the real life artist. For example the painting &quot;The Old Guitarist&quot; would be renamed to &quot;My First Guitar Teacher&quot; and then some paragraphs written telling the story of the teacher and his relationship to Picasso, which is entirely fiction (this painting is actually in the public domain, but let's pretend it's not). Would this type of work count as a parody, and therefore allow me to use copyrighted works in a for-profit publication? If not, why?
First, there's a step missing: parody does not &quot;therefore&quot; allow you to copy protected works. You have to determine whether this is &quot;fair use&quot;, where you get in the neighborhood of parody in identifying &quot;purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching ..., scholarship, or research&quot;. Therefore you have to go through the balancing act that is fair use analysis. In Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., SCOTUS considered parody as a form of criticism or comment, noting that &quot;This Court has only once before even considered whether parody may be fair use, and that time issued no opinion because of the Court's equal division&quot;. For that case, the court continues Suffice it to say now that parody has an obvious claim to transformative value, as Acuff Rose itself does not deny. Like less ostensibly humorous forms of criticism, it can provide social benefit, by shedding light on an earlier work, and, in the process, creating a new one. We thus line up with the courts that have held that parody, like other comment or criticism, may claim fair use under § 107. The important step in this ruling is tha For the purposes of copyright law, the nub of the definitions, and the heart of any parodist's claim to quote from existing material, is the use of some elements of a prior author's composition to create a new one that, at least in part, comments on that author's works. If, on the contrary, the commentary has no critical bearing on the substance or style of the original composition, which the alleged infringer merely uses to get attention or to avoid the drudgery in working up something fresh, the claim to fairness in borrowing from another's work diminishes accordingly (if it does not vanish), and other factors, like the extent of its commerciality, loom larger. In other words, you can't catch a free ride on &quot;parody&quot; to reach a fair use judgment. Even if it were parody, &quot;parody may or may not be fair use&quot;, as the court said. That does not preclude establishing that the work in some other way comments or criticizes. Get a lawyer before you go doing this, in case you end up involuntarily making new law.
If I lock you in a room without access to anything and tell you &quot;Write a novel&quot; and you write a novel with characters, you have copyright in the work. But it's not absolute: If you use your own characters, you own all the copyright in the work, but not in the idea, as ideas are not copyrightable, see Feist v Rural. If you use someone else's characters extensively (as in more than a short hommage/cameo), you very likely make a derivate. You own a copyright in your part, as in the expression of the story or pictures you created, but you do not gain property interest in the existing characters' expression. Since the copyright to the characters lies with the owner of their IP, you need their OK to release (and also to even make) your work - as with the owner of a copyright is the sole right to decide on distribution and creation of derivates under 17 USC § 106 (2). Also remember that making an unlicensed derivate work risks having nothing you can sue for in case the original copyright owner lifts your ideas and scenes-a-faire parts and adapts them for their own derivate, see Anderson v Stallone The strange case of fanfiction chains... Now, there is a strange situation when a work is based on a work which is based on a work... Then, publishers and editors start with red ink and the result is, that what people know as Twilight now has nothing to do with the fanfiction it started as (It wasn't Vampires in the original draft), and 50 Shades of Grey ended up striking any and all supernatural from it, despite it having been a Twilight fanfiction originally. By making own characters and own expression of the world, there could be no copyright infringement. US law vs Egypt law? Both Egypt and the US have signed the Berne convention, meaning that copyright is very very similar in the broad strokes that the right to allow or disallow derivates is with the copyright holder. Also, since Ben10's copyright owners are to the best of my knowledge in the US (Cartoon Network Studios &amp; Men of Action Studios), they will sue in a US federal court.
Such clauses are called "copyright assignment", "invention assignment", and/or "works for hire" clauses, partly depending on the clause's intent and wording. They're pretty common in employment contracts for software development and some creative positions. Frankly, the clauses don't actually do much, at least in the US -- copyright law already recognizes the concept of works made for hire (which belong to the employer), and claims too far beyond that are often rejected if they aren't obviously related to company business. With that said, your hypothetical programmer's painting is safe unless it depicts, say, the contents of an email from the CEO. :) Even if the clause technically entitles the employer to claim ownership, the employer has no legitimate interest in doing so. Likewise, that app created outside work is safe as long as it is created using no company resources and is unrelated to the employer's business. If the app is obviously related, that's where things get hairy.
In the US, the author would be able to wind an infringement lawsuit against the re-publisher. Title 17, the US copyright law codified, grants the author the exclusive right to authorize republication, and does not require that a person use their real name. The argument "It was on the internet, it's in the public domain" is utterly without legal merit. The same goes for the assertion that a person loses his rights if he is uncontactable. The author has stated the terms of the license, so there isn't even a reasonable argument that the infringement is innocent (unknowing: "I thought it was with permission). There is no requirement that you have to allow a potential user to hassle you about the license terms. The one thing that is special regarding anonymous and pseudonymous works is that under 17 USC 302, "copyright endures for a term of 95 years from the year of its first publication, or a term of 120 years from the year of its creation, whichever expires first". For a work whose author is identified, copyright "endures for a term consisting of the life of the author and 70 years after the author’s death". This assumes that the host site has not preempted author's license: Stack Exchange, for example, preempts an author's exclusive right, so you can copy stuff from here accorting to the SE terms of usage.
First off, the work is almost certainly not in the public domain in the US. Works are generally copyrighted upon creation or publication, but in this case the work was probably explicitly copyrighted. The fact that a work is out of print generally has no bearing on its copyright status. US copyright law changed several times in the last century. The 1985 copyright year means the board game was probably published then, and it's since it's a Disney copyright it's a corporate work, which would give it a copyright term of 95 years, meaning that it should be covered under copyright until 2080. See this factsheet on copyright from the US Copyright office. Works Created on or after January 1, 1978 For works made for hire and anonymous and pseudonymous works, the duration of copyright is 95 years from first publication or 120 years from creation, whichever is shorter International laws will vary, but many countries adhere to the Berne Convention, which means that international laws will probably be at least similar. Either way, the work isn't very old from an intellectual property perspective. Fair use is an exception to copyright law that allows portions of copyrighted works to be used without permission or compensation in certain circumstances; academic or scholarly use is one of them. Generally, your use of the work has to be the minimum necessary amount to serve your purposes, and cannot harm the commercial value of the work. (The fact that the work is out of print may help with the latter.) The problem with fair use is that it's always determined on a case by case basis. The only way to know for sure if a particular use is fair use is to wait for the copyright holder to sue you and then make a fair use defense in court. I was going to suggest that you discuss this with the editor of your journal, but re-reading your question it looks like you're planning to publish to a personal blog rather than an academic journal. In the end, it's up to you (or your attorney, if you choose to hire one) to analyze the relevant legal concepts and rules and decide if and how much of the work to use.
Copyright in the US is usually a civil matter. Meaning that the copyright owner can sue (typically for money damages or injunctive relief) an infringer. The criminal laws that we have are aimed at the reproducer and/or distributor. In other words, chances are that you won't get in any criminal trouble for accessing academic articles of dubious origin. But never say never. RIP Aaron Schwartz.
Facts cannot be copyrighted. Such a project does not violate copyright law, and if you're in the United States, it is protected by the First Amendment.
All of your works would be considered to be a derivative work. This is because your work, is based on the work of someone else's. A good test for this to see if something is a derivative work is to see whether the new work can effectively exist without the original. Most copyright laws worldwide are similar, thanks to the Berne Convention for copyrighted works. Since derivative works are normally a right that is exclusive to the copyright holder, you can't make such works without permission (generally through a license or expiry of copyright). So now, let's take a look: The Mona Lisa was made hundreds of years ago. It's definitely in the public domain. You're in no breach of copyright laws here. Yes, of course. Microsoft retains copyright on their icons, and possibly trademarks as well. However, they may have trademark guidance that allows you to use their icons - as long as you follow it. Likely the same as microsoft - you can assume it's similar for most large companies. Code is copyrighted as a literary work - the layout and visual aspect is copyrighted as an artistic work. That artist retains copyright, unless you obtain the work with a license, or the copyright is expired. If you create a derivative work, you infringe on their rights.