Is using font on a business card considered commercial use? I'm currently designing a business card for a client and looking for an applicable font. A lot of these fonts are marked with some sort of payment required for commercial use. While I don't plan to use any of these on the business card, can that really be considered commercial use? My client isn't going to be selling his cards, only using them to further his business via advertising, so wouldn't that technically be considered fair use rather than commercial?
Unfortunately the answer is a vague "it depends." Commercial versus non-commercial is not clearly defined in actual law, and is usually up to the specific license to define what it considers to be commercial use. If you were putting them on your business cards, then it's just being used for advertising and whether it's commercial use is a bit controversial. If the license explicitly prohibits the use of the work in advertising, then the license should explicitly mention that and should not rely on the term "commercial use" to cover or protect it. Creative Commons ran an excellent study on commercial versus noncommercial use back in 2009: Defining “Noncommercial” - A Study of How the Online Population Understands “Noncommercial Use” In the United States, for example, the Copyright Act does not define a copyright owner’s rights in terms of commercial or noncommercial use. Instead, copyright law sometimes attaches legal significance to whether a use is “commercial” or “noncommercial” or whether a user is deemed to be a commercial or noncommercial entity, However, rarely are the terms defined, and the law offers no specific guidance on how to differentiate between commercial and noncommercial uses or users of copyrighted works. If you were putting them on a business card you were making for the client, then that would be more clearly identified as commercial use because you're using it in something you are selling for a profit. What your client will be using them for is not relevant, because you're the one selling them to the client and you need to have the right to be able to do that.
First, &quot;I've seen some people say it is legal to do so but I want a second opinion.&quot; This is not a legal opinion. This is only in response to the question &quot;Can you use (TM) on a product that is not Trademarked&quot;? Second, you did not specify a jurisdiction. Since you mentioned Apple, I will assume USA. tl/dr: Yes, you can used the TM mark and no, it is not fraudulent. In the USA, there are three &quot;trademark&quot; symbols, (R), (TM), and (SM). (R) - (Registered) The federal registration symbol. This may be used only once the mark is actually registered in the USPTO. It my not be used while the application is pending. (TM) - (Trademark) / (SM) - (Service Mark) - According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office: If you claim rights to use a mark, you may use the &quot;TM&quot; (trademark) or &quot;SM&quot; (service mark) designation to alert the public to your claim of a &quot;common-law&quot; mark. No registration is necessary to use a &quot;TM&quot; or &quot;SM&quot; symbol and you may continue to use these symbols even if the USPTO refuses to register your mark. Those symbols put people on notice that you claim rights in the mark, although common law doesn't give you all the rights and benefits of federal registration.
What are exactly the legal consequences of "All rights reserved"? Almost none. You have to explicitly grant copyright rights. You don't even need the Copyright notice for them to apply. My "almost" is because the notice makes it harder for somebody to argue "they didn't realize". Do I still need an additional SW License Agreement or is the Copyright notice above + a Disclaimer of liability sufficient? If this is free software (I know you said it isn't), do yourself (and everyone else) a favour by picking a license you like. Preferably either GPL or MIT (depending on your taste). There are far too many free licenses already. Please don't add another. (It also makes it much easier for any user of your software: "Oh yeah, GPL v2. We understand that. We can use it." as opposed to "What are the implications of using this one??" As this is not free software, I think you need a paid-for lawyer (who understands IPR in your juridiction.) Edit: In principle, I believe you don't need anything. The code is copyright, so the customer can't do anything with it (without explicit permissions that you haven't granted). However if the customer doesn't realize that or thinks you won't mind, you then have to go to court to enforce your rights (and probably end up with a disgruntled customer). A short, clear, license will make it clear to the customer what they are allowed to do, and save all that aggravation.
While I agree that the license required for your use case isn't particularly obvious to me, the page you have linked to includes the following paragraph: Need help picking your license? Just shoot us an email at themes@getbootstrap.com and we’ll help you decide which license makes sense for your needs! So in this case, my recommendation would be to get in touch as described, that way you will know for sure that you are properly licensed.
When you license your IP (like a song) you can specify the terms and conditions of its use by the licensee, including revenue shares from any derived work. However, if, as your comment suggests, you grant an "informal" license, and later decide that you want to "firm things up" with a license having different terms, that's a matter you would have to either negotiate or litigate with your counterparty. If you want a common reference point for negotiation of this sort of license, you might have a look at compulsory license terms.
All your work is yours. They've made it very clear it wasn't a work for hire, so it's yours. They can't copyright any of their ideas. You can't copyright an idea. Only specific creative elements authored by them and present in your work could be covered by copyright. You didn't use their block diagrams. I don't see how references to other sites to look at would constitute a creative element they authored. That said, you probably want to talk to a lawyer and get a written legal opinion that you can rely on.
It's possible that CAD has a separate licence from the authors of ABC that allows them to produce a closed source copy. If not, they have no right to distribute CAD. However two wrongs don't make a right, and so you don't get to violate the copyright of CAD.* Unfortunately, unless you are one of the authors of ABC, you have no standing to sue the authors of CAD. You can only notify the authors of ABC and hope they do. If the authors of ABC don't have the resources to pursue the matter, you may be out of luck. That's one of the reasons the FSF gets copyright assignments for their projects. * It turns out that this is a much more debateable issue than I first thought. Some courts have held that an unauthorized derivative work is not copyrightable.
If such a case came to court, the court would presumably rule that merely publishing the advertising could not be considered to be doing something "commercial". (Otherwise the contract would be absurd, as the question points out.) The court would therefore define "commercial" as some act beyond merely displaying the advertising -- perhaps charging for the website on which it is displayed, or using it to sell goods. Moreover, since the company apparently wrote the contract, any ambiguity in it would be construed against the company, if there is another reasonable interpretation. Thus the contract would not be void, and could be sued on, but the company would win only if it established some conduct that the court was prepared to consider as "commercial" in light of the circumstances and the purpose of the contract. By the way it is not really on point, but it is a common misunderstanding that: some customers may be organized as nonprofit and they're not allowed to make profits Nonprofit entities may do business and make income that would be considered "profit" for an ordinary corporation. What they cannot do is distribute that income as "profit" to owners, shareholders, members, or other individuals.