Can misspellings be covered by trademark? Say you found out that the keyword "youtub" is getting millions of searches a year. It's pretty obvious that these searches are just misspellings of the company Youtube. You decide you want to try to capitalize on this misspelling by creating a "single person bathtub" product and calling it the "You Tub" and registering "theyoutub.com" domain. Would Youtube have any sort of trademark/copyright claim on "You Tub"? Would they be able to seize your domain for squatting or similar issues? On one hand the product is in a completely diffrent non-competing industry, there are no claims of affiliation or trying to phish or trick the user once on the page, and the brand name is relevant to the product. But on the other hand I think most people could see the goal here was to try to gain traffic that was meant for Youtube.
Yes, they can be. In the example given in the question, there is an additional factor which is that the possibly-infringing company is in a different line of business, which means that it might be possible to use the exact same name without infringing trademark. For example, there are Dove soap and Dove chocolate. (This possibility is probably more remote with a distinctive, novel name such as YouTube.) Trademark protection is supposed to prevent others from confusing consumers. For example, if the graphic design or other branding of the hypothetical youtub were sufficiently similar to that of YouTube that consumers might actually think that YouTube had branched out into the plumbing fixtures industry, then a court would likely find trademark infringement. (Such elements are often protected trademarks in their own right, of course, independent of the world mark; for example, UPS has trademarked "the color brown" in connection with package delivery services.) If a company started using the youtub brand to host and serve digitized video recordings, a finding of infringement is more likely still, even in the absence of other similarities. This would be especially true if it appeared that the name had been chosen explicitly to draw customers from the YouTube site, and that would probably be fairly easy to demonstrate in court.
A "similar brand", even a "knock off", does not infringe trademark protection (which is the issue here, not copyright) as long as reasonable consumers or purchasers will not be confused or mislead into thinking that the product is the same as the original product, or is made by, affiliated with, sponsored by, or authorized by the makers of the original product, or that the knockoff in some way shares the reputation of the original product. Obviously that is a fact-based judgement, but a name that alludes to another product but is obviously different is generally not considered an infringement. (I recall reading of a case in which the well-known "North Face" clothing brand tried to sue a new brad called "South butt". I believe that North Face lost. Apparently I was wrong and the case was settled.)
Short preface: You might want to consult with a lawyer if what that website does really constitutes trademark infringement. But the question did not ask for that. It asked what to do if you want to send a C&amp;D to a website without contact information. That's the question I will answer here. Whether or not the C&amp;D letter itself has merit in this particular situation is another question, and probably one which would violate our &quot;specific legal advise&quot; rule. You can use a whois-database to find the public information on who operates a domain. Doing so for the domain in question yields that the contact information of the actual domain owner was &quot;Withheld for Privacy Purposes&quot;. That means the domain was registered through a domain-by-proxy service. The postal address in Iceland you see in the record is the address of that service, not of the domain owner. But you can see the registrar which hosts the domain: &quot;Name Cheap Inc.&quot;. So that's somewhere you can address complaints to. If you cause them enough problems, then you might be able to get them to take the website down. Those discount webhosters don't make nearly enough money per customer to fight their legal battles for them. Just reading a C&amp;D letter already costs them more than hosting a website for a year. So they might just fire the customer to avoid the trouble of dealing with you. But then the website might just reappear hosted by some other company a day later and you are back at square one. The registrar should also be able to tell you the real identity of the person who operates the website. However, they will likely not tell you without putting up a fight, as revealing private information without being legally obligated to might make them liable for violating a bunch of privacy laws. Ask your lawyer if there is any hope to get a subpoena forcing them to give you the identity.
You cannot use the libraries trademarks, but that does not stop you from using your own. For example, you cannot use the name Twitter Bootstrap to endorse, promote or use as the name of your project.
In my opinion, you are totally free to publish the information. There are two areas of law that can be cosidered - private and public law. In the private law area, you can be liable for revealing trade secrets, but only if you agreed to keep them by a contract. Trade secrets do not exist by themselves (there are minor exceptions, eg. in competition law, but those do not concern us), they must be protected by contracts. Another private limitations, like libel laws, won't apply here. This is not uncommon, but not in cars - you can find clauses like these in software license agreements. Then there is the public area. Is there any regulation, any policy of the state, that prevents you from publishing it? I am not aware you whole legal code of your state, but I doubt there is. It would be a harsh limitation of freedom of speech. Even if the modification could lead to illegal effect (like, modifying toy weapon to kill by rising its power...) it would be only illegal under very rare circumstances. To conclude it - freedom of speech can be limited only if there is sufficient public interest to do so, and I don't see any.
The question as worded implies that if something is a parody it is automatically fair use or allowed in US copyright law. This is a myth. First of all, in a copyright context, the term "parody" is somewhat limited. In that sense, a "parody" is a new work which comments on the original (often but not always by mocking or ridiculing the original). A mere alternate version which modifies the form of the original, perhaps humorously, but not to comment on the original or perhaps on much of anything, is not a parody. A new work which modifies the original to comment on something else, but not on the original, is a satire. Of course many works may be both parodies and satires in this sense. See this law.se Q&amp;A for extensive quotes from Suntrust Bank v. Houghton Mifflin Co 268 F.3d 1257 (The case of The Wind Done Gone vs Gone with the Wind) and discussion of what is and is not a parody in US copyright law, and when a parody is fair use. A parody, because it comments on the original, will often be found to be a fair use of the original. But not always. The full four-factor analysis must still be done, and the results are never certain until a court has passed on the specific case. See this law.se Q&amp;A for more on fair use. I can't tell from the question whether the modified song is truly a parody in the sense used in copyright law. If not, it probably isn't fair use, although it might be for other reasons. By the way, a song written for a television show or video to be distributed commercially is a commercial use, even if a non-profit corporation is involved, and even if there is an educational purpose. Note that fair-use is a strictly US legal concept. Even if something is fair use under US law, it may be copyright infringement under the laws of some other country.
Yes, assuming the material was given the standard license. You would be creating a derivative work, and only the copyright owner has the right to authorize creation of a derivative work. See the copyright FAQ for general information. The owner can file a DMCA takedown notice with YouTube and they will by policy notify you of the infringement claim and unless you file a counter-notice (you legally couldn't given the facts you're asserting), they will take it down. The owner can also sue you.
If users were to copy dictionary definitions, for instance Oxford or Cambridge) and make the word lists public, is it a copyright infringement? If the dictionary entries are protected by copyright then your user has infringed that copyright by posting the dictionary entries. Am I responsible for this activity? No. But you may be responsible for removing it if you get a request. Can dictionary owners charge me against copyright issue? If you follow the procedures outlines in the DMCA you can be protected from liability.