What does it mean to &quot;pirate&quot; a game, app, or other digital resource? I've heard the term "pirate" many times before, but I have never really understood it. How do people do it and why?
While software is often the subject of pirating, the term is also used generally for unauthorized use of any copyrighted material. It turns out that this terminology is very old. Wikipedia notes that this sense of the word piracy is attested as far back as 1603 CE and was used as part of the language of a copyright treaty as early as 1886 CE. In particular, people who use or distribute unauthorized copies of movies, television shows, videos of live concerts, and music are also frequently said to be engaged in pirating of the material. The term is used in this context in testimony before Congress by the chief U.S. Copyright official in 2005. Critics of the term argue that "piracy," which originally meant armed robbery of tangible property on the high seas (a form of theft), is an inapt way to describe copyright infringement which is really different in kind than theft because copyright infringement does not deprive anyone of use of the materials, it merely impairs the legally granted monopoly of someone regarding how it shall be used. As Matthew Yglesias explains at Slate: If I steal your car then you don't have a car anymore, whereas if I duplicate a digital media file we both end up with it. The harm in the duplicating is supposed to be that by duplicating content that Fox Filmed Entertainment owns the copyright to, I'm depriving Tom Rothman of some revenue that he might have gotten had I instead gone out and bought a copy of the content for myself. That's fair enough for Rothman to feel sad about, but it's a totally different kind of thing. I didn't buy DC's animated film of Batman: Year One, and I didn't pirate a copy either; I watched it at a friend's house. The difference between watching a movie with your friend and copying your friend's Blu-ray is that one is legal and one is illegal. But in both cases you watch the movie without paying the copyright owner, and in neither case have you stolen anything from anyone.
A translation is a devivative work - the copyright owner has the exclusive right to these So, yes, translation is prima facie copyright infringement. Strictly speaking, if you translate it, it's a derivative work because you exercised creativity in making the translation; what Google translate does is not a derivative work, it's a copy because there is no creativity. Either way, only the copyright owner can do (or authorise) this. Whether it's legal or not depends on if what you are doing falls within one of the exceptions to the applicable copyright law such as fair use or fair dealing. Attributing the original author does not, of itself, allow translation. Additionally, I'm not able to find the copyright documentation for the site link I provided above. What is "copyright documentation"? Copyright exists the moment a work is created and no further documentation is required. Essentially, I could translate the whole documentation by myself to avoid this problem. No, you can't - see above. If copy-pasting the google translate is illegal, then exactly how much must I edit, move around sentences, change words, and such until the text is no longer plagiarized? All of it. If you were, based on your own knowledge of the software, to write a manual without any copying o the existing manual, that would not be copyright infringement. Is this plagiarism or copyright infringement? It's copyright infringement - plagiarism is an academic misconduct issue not a legal one. where can I check the copyright for the above link? The site you linked has "Copyright © 2020 Acquia, Inc. All Rights Reserved" in the bottom left corner which identifies the copyright holder, the date and prohibits all copying ("all rights reserved"). This isn't necessary but it is helpful. If you really want to do this, contact Acquia, Inc and ask for permission.
The only potential problem would be if CC-BY-SA and CC BY-SA (and other variants) come to refer to two different things. There is a problem that in any spelling, "cc by sa" is informal shorthand for a class of licenses. One of them is here: it looks to me like they "officially" call it the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license. Here is another version. The existing practice of referring to CC licenses is very problematic, because there are multiple versions, and without a link to the specific version, a person can't know what they are being bound by. This is an example of a real ambiguity. There is (at least presently) no difference between CC-BY-SA, CC by-SA, or any other variants. CC-BY and CC-SA, on the other hand refer to different things. Problems only arise when it's not possible to objectively figure out what a licensor was referring to.
Alice has been developing her own enhancements, and they're pretty similar to Bob's. Neither Alice nor Bob has copied the other's enhancements, so neither has violated the other's copyright in the enhancements. Whether that could be proved in court is another matter, of course, but since the original work is licensed under creative commons the question unlikely to arise in court. Would Alice be prevented from coming up with enhancements to her own game if other people could prove they thought of and released the idea first? No. Copyright does not protect ideas. It only protects a particular expression of those ideas from being copied. Theoretically, if two authors come up with identical 500-word descriptions of something and can establish that each did so independently, neither has a claim against the other. The practical problem there, of course, is that it would be impossible to prove such a thing. Could Alice outright claim Bob's "Adapted Material" because he developed it on her original work? Assuming that in publishing his adaptations Bob followed the terms of the creative commons license with respect to the original work, Alice's only claim would be that he copied her adaptations without following the terms of the license. If Bob can show that he did not do so, her claim would fail. In a comment, you wrote: Suppose Alice went ahead and intentionally, somehow provably ripped off Bob's "Adapted Material" because she liked the content so much, does Bob reserve any rights on his adaptation, or is Alice able to commercialize the work that Bob did in extending her original work? If we assume that Bob complied with the license of the original material, we know that he licensed his adaptations under "the identical terms," so Alice would be able to use Bob's adaptations under those terms for non-commercial purposes. Since the assumption here is that Alice provably copied something of Bob's, I think it is fairly clear that she would be liable for damages if she exploited that material commercially without paying royalties.
Interesting that they don't give a source and also don't link to anywhere (such as Wikimedia commons). So I assume that content is google's own. So generally speaking: No, when no license is provided, that means you can't use whatever it is in a project of yours (whether commercially or not), because the &quot;default&quot;, when nothing is specified, is that no license is given. So unless you find a license that grants you a permission on google's own content, these sounds can't be used freely.
They certainly can make that a license term and revoke the license if you do not comply. However, revoking the license is all they can do to &quot;forbid&quot;. Or they could sue you for damages without revoking the license. That said, you are free to consult how to use their software so long as you do not hold a license so that you are not bound by the terms AND you do not break the law e.g. copyright. How to do it is up to you to figure. Maybe you could simply consult users that do have a license — on their premises and devices.
Why do you think Oracle have not been protecting their trade mark? Using a trade mark to describe the product (“Written in JavaScript”, “Seeking JavaScript developer”) is not an infringement and the trade mark owner is under no obligation to, indeed, cannot stop this. Where they are required to defend their trade mark is when it is being used in such a way that there is the risk of confusion that the goods or services could be confused with the trade mark owner’s goods or services. Further, they are not required to defend all breaches, only enough to show that they are actively doing so. Also it is not important that the trade mark be associated with the trade mark’s owner. Do you know who owns the trade mark “Ben &amp; Jerry’s”?
Does a situation like this constitute breach of contract and/or a violation of advertising laws? No. There is not enough information that would lead to a finding of either. It is unclear how customers would be allegedly affected (if at all) by the release of a product at a different store, let alone where the goods or services at issue are digital and require no physical presence at a venue or premise. Except for very specific factual circumstances, a change of sales venue would hardly be cognizable as deceptive or unfair practice. Also, prior to purchasing or reserving a game, there is no contract between the public and the developer/supplier. Potential customers typically are not entitled to a specific performance by the developer. Even if [Phoenix Point] supporters' decision were provably based on the prospect of release at Steam, your description nowhere reflects that there was a mutually conscious exchange (or promise of an exchange) of considerations involving the parties' support of a game and the counterparty's release of the game at a specific venue. Absent that meeting of the minds, either party's reliance or expectation on the other is irrelevant. Generally speaking, the sole cruciality of either party's motives does not create legal obligations.