Google Translate Voice/Speech used for Youtube Tutorials (TTS) I have made a video tutorial using Google Translates Voice/Speech-functionality to explain what the user should do. It works really good compered to other free open-sorce programs I have used. Can I upload this to Youtube without legal consequences? I am counting on earning a few bucks on the video so it's commerical use.
The Google terms of service do not prohibit using their translate programs to create something that you sell. TOS for using their API would be irrelevant, since that isn't what you're doing. There is no clear copyright issue: as far as I can tell, there is not yet any case law suggesting that the output of a program can be owned by the copyright-holder of the program. (Copyright must be held by a legal person, i.e. an actual person or a corporation, and a program cannot yet be a legal person). A human-performed translation is subject to copyright protection since what is protected is that which is created by the (translating) author, and a program lacks that creative element. A translation owes its existence to the program-user using a particular tool to create the work, be it a pen or a translation program. What is unclear at present is whether a person using machine translation in a permitted fashion to create a derivative work thereby gains copyright to that derived work.
Details depend on the juristiction. For that, consult a lawyer if you plan to publish your app anywhere. But generally, even simple texts from exercises can be covered by copyright. Compare song lyrics, which are not much longer (and might not involve more creative thought than a good exercise ...). For vocabulary lists, it gets more tricky, but those can be covered as well if the assembly of the list was a creative effort. So if you simply list the 1,000 most common worlds in English and their translation, you are possibly fine, but if the words are divided into units and lessons, that's creative work.
This has some basis in law. You need permission from a person to commercially exploit their likeness especially in California, and a waiver is a way of staving off future lawsuit over right of publicity. YT has a privacy policy whereby a person who have been filmed can request removal of the video (see also this, because they don't explain the policy in a single place). Because YT is commercially exploiting people's personalities, this is necessary.
The program itself is probably not illegal - although as you point out, it may breach the terms of service of providers you are using. If you distribute the lyrics, you may be breaching copyright (regardless of whether the lyrics were from the original author or elsewhere - sites can claim copyright of material they create/ whose form they fix).
As usual with trademarks, the key question is "will reasonable people be confused about the source or affiliations of the product or service". Trademarks are, as you already know, limited to a particular industry or area of business, in general. Displaying user videos is not exactly the same thing as a particular popular song, but they just might be close enough for some consumer confusion tom occur. Whether reasonable people are in fact confused into thinking that the app is in some way sponsored by the makers of the song is a question of fact. A trademark suit would probably need to present some sort of evidence that confusion had occurred or was likely. It also may make a difference whether "Tik Tok" has been registered as a trademark. In the US, registration gets greater protection than mere use. (In some countries there is no protection without registration.) It is also possible that the app has already licensed the rights to the term from the trademark owner for the song. This would avoid a potential suit. It is also worth noting that the term "Tik Tok" is not original with the song. It dates back, in that spelling, to at least the "Oz" books by L. Frank Baum and others Tik-Tok of Oz dates from 1914, and the character of the Tik-Tok from the book Ozma of Oz (1907). Terms that are not original coinages are less strongly protected in trademark law, and the app could claim to be alluding to the Oz character, not the more recent song. A comment by ub3rst4r says that: the term "Tik Tok" is registered as a trademark in the USA by "Bytedance Ltd" (which is the company that operates the app). If that is correct, the US Patent and Trademark office (PTO) came to at least a preliminary conclusion that this trademark did not infringe anyone else's trademark. That doesn't meant that an infringement suit is doomed, but it would make any such suit harder and less likely. It seems that, as described in this news story a company selling watchs under the name "Tic Tok" was sent a cease and desist letter on behalf of the singer Kesha Sebert. The firm responded by filing a suit for a declaratory judgement. The case is Wimo Labs LLC v. Kesha Sebert, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, No. 1:11-cv-02978. However, google does not show any resolution of this case, one way or the other. This was brought to my attention in a comment by StephanS. As this docket record shows, the case was dismissed by agreement without prejudice, apparently after a settlement (as stated in the comment by user muru). Thus there was no ruling on the merits of the case.
Building off @DigitalFire's answer, I looked into the TOS related requirements that Google Analytics puts out and I found this on Google Analytic's TOS: You will have and abide by an appropriate privacy policy and will comply with all applicable laws relating to the collection of information from visitors to Your websites. You must post a privacy policy and that policy must provide notice of your use of a cookie that collects anonymous traffic data. Apparently, Google themselves also requires you to notify users when you are using their service to track people (That's pretty good of Google). Here is a simple example of what a privacy policy would look like. There doesn't appear to be any issues with laws in other countries either. For my purposes, I'll just implement an agreement that pops up during installation that users will have to accept.
Twitter don’t have to host your account UMG’s and Sony’s business is probably more important to Twitter than yours is. It seems Twitter have made a commercial decision to close your account down. They can do this: We may suspend or terminate your account or cease providing you with all or part of the Services at any time for any or no reason, … What’s happening is not fair use Fair use is a lot narrower than you think it is. UMG and Sony (and every other music label) get paid when people use their music on a commercial platform like Twitter. Which means, you enabling people to avoid this is directly reducing their market so this is not fair use. Giving credit does not help. Now, if your program blocked the use of copyrighted songs that might be ok. Your program looks exactly like a piracy tool I’m sure you have the best intentions but your tool readily enables copyright violations by others. That’s moving out of the realms of civil breach and into possible criminal sanctions. I wouldn’t push this if I were you. Your understanding of copyright is flawed This video is a good primer on copyright.
You don't just want to ask, you are required to obtain a license (or in other terms: the OK of the author*). Your game is based on a book. That makes your game a derivate work. Under berne convention, any signer state has to make sure that the author* has the right to authorize any derivate. That includes translations, films, or games. Without a license, you violate copyright law. It doesn't matter if your game is free. To stay safe, you need to obtain a license. Quite some authors would be happy to cut a deal, license or guidelines for fan-projects. As an example, the late Sir Terry Pratchett OBE has specific guidelines on what is ok and what not. Ask your author* about these questions and consult a Lawyer! Only then make your fan project! * This means the author, their estate or whoever they assigned their rights in the work to. Some examples: For that teenage wizard in a private castle charter school that'd be a certain J.K. Rowling. For those hairy-halflings running all over the continent hunted by orcs that'd be the J.R.R. Tolkien-Estate. And for those space wizards using blades from solid light that'd be The Walt Disney Company or one of their subsidiaries.