Is copyright law international? For example, if I buy a pirated copy of a North American book from a local market in Bangladesh, can the publisher sue me and the seller? I can attempt to buy original copies of the book; however, they are extremely expensive and the book will take about 30-60 days to reach me.
Each country has its own copyright law, but the majority of countries have signed the Berne Copyright Convention, and most of those that have not, have joined the TRIPS agreement, which includes most of the same provisions. See Wikipedia for a list of those countries that do not adhere to Berne. Bangladesh is not on the list. The Berne Copyright Convention specifies the basics of copyright protection, requires a minimum term of protection, requires that copyright be granted without any formalities such as a copyright notice or registration, and requires that authors from other signatory countries be given at least as much protection as authors from the current country. It leaves many details to local law, however, including what exceptions to copyright are allowed. However, the Berne Convention does not require that buying a work that infringes copyright be treated as infringement, and I do not know of any country where it is, although I do not know the details of copyright law in Bangladesh In the united-states the copyright owner has the right to make or authorize the making of copies and to distribute or authorize the distribution of such copies. But once an authorized copy has been sold, the owner of the copy may re-sell it, lend it, or give it away to anyone, and no permission from the copyright owner is required. In the US this is called the &quot;First Sale Doctrine&quot;. The laws of many other countries, including the EU countries and the UK, are similar in this regard. That means that it is perfectly legal to take lawfully created and purchased copies into another country and resell them there. Moreover, if someone makes a copy without permission, or knowingly distributes such a copy, that person commits copyright infringement, and could in theory be sued, but the buyer does not. It should be noted that under US law the First Sale Doctrine does not apply to unauthorized (pirated) copies. It is copyright infringement to knowingly sell (but not to buy) unauthorized copies under US law, and it is an infringement to re-sell such copies if the seller knows that they are unauthorized, although at a private sale this is not likely to be enforced. The Copyright law of Bangladesh is somewhat different. Section 71 (in chapter 13) provides that infringement occurs: (a) when any person, without a license ... or in contravention of the conditions of a license ... (a)(i) does anything, the exclusive right to do which is by this Act conferred upon the owner of the copyright; ... (b) When any person- (b)(i) makes for sale or hire, or sells or lets for hire, or by way of trade displays or offers for sale or hire, or (b)(iv) imports into Bangladesh, any infringing copies of the work. The &quot;exclusive rights&quot; are given in section 14(1) of the same act (part of chapter 3) The relevant ones are: (a) to reproduce the work in any material form including the storing of it in any medium by electronic means; (b) to issue copies of the work to the public except copies already in circulation; At the end of section 14, it is noted that: For the purposes of this section, the copy which has been sold once shall be deemed to be a copy already in circulation. This seems to be the Bangladesh version of the First Sale Doctrine, and it does not, at least not explicitly, contain the same rule as US law does, that to see or rent an unauthorized copy is infringement, even if there was a previous sale. But such a rule may have been imposed by caselaw. So a copy of a book (or any other protected work) purchased in Bangladesh might or might not have been properly authorized, but the purchaser is not committing infringement in either case. Section 74 of the Bangladesh copyright act does provide that ⎯(1) The Registrar, [may] ... order that copies made out of Bangladesh of the work which if made in Bangladesh would infringe copyright shall not be imported. (2) ... the Registrar or any person authorized by him in this behalf may enter into any air-craft, ship, vehicle, dock or premises where any such copies ... may be found and may examine such copies. (3) All copies to which any order made under sub-section (1) applies shall be deemed to be goods of which the bringing into Bangladesh has been prohibited or restricted under section 16 of the Customs Act, 1969, (Act IV of 1969) and all the provisions of said Act shall have effect accordingly This appears to permit the seizure of improperly imported copies, but not prosecution of a purchaser of such copies. Whether it would be likely to be enforced in the case of copies sold in a street market I could not guess. Moreover, it is unlikely that a publisher will find it worth its while to sue a street market seller, even if that person sells a clearly pirated copy of a book, particularly in a foreign country (foreign to the publisher, that is). The publisher or copyright owner probably could sue, depending on the details of the law in the country where the sale occurs. But the suit would have to be brought in the courts of that country, and might well cost more to bring than any plausible damage award would yield. Still some copyright owners might sue if they learn of such a sale. But the buyer is not at risk unless the law in the country where the sale takes place is different from that of most countries in this matter.
Please note that I'm not a lawyer. If you need specific legal advice, please consult a qualified attorney. Every time someone buys an item from someone else, there's at least an implied contract of sale where the seller of the item agrees to give the buyer the item to be purchased in exchange for a sum of money or other object of value which the buyer agrees to pay as consideration. Generally, in an online purchase, a contract of sale is completed when payment is made and the product has shipped. If the seller fails to provide the item you intended to buy after you make your payment, that's a breach of this contract of sale as the seller has failed to execute their end of the contract. I seriously doubt a "no refunds" policy would excuse the vendor for breaching the contract of sale. If you cannot resolve the issue with the vendor, then your best bet is to initiate a dispute through your credit/debit card issuer.
There are three questions relevant to this issue: Who owned the copyright in the first place? Was the copyright transferred? If not, was a license given to the site to use the content? In general, under most countries' laws, the person who creates an original work owns the copyright. The person with the copyright has the right to copy and distribute the work, and the right to prevent others from doing so. In some cases, such as where a work is created as a "work for hire" by certain employees under certain circumstances, the initial copyright is held by a third party. You will need a lawyer familiar with your jurisdiction and your circumstances to determine if this is the case. Finally, even if you own the copyright, you can license others to use your content. This may be in an express written document, or it may be an implied license--implied, for instance, by the act of posting it on their blog. The existence and scope of such a license is, again, something that will have to be determined based on your country's specific laws and your specific situation. The bottom line is: if you submitted articles to that blog, you can't complain that they posted them. Depending on the license in effect, you might be able to get them taken down, or you might not. You need a lawyer, not the internet, to tell you what your rights are in this very specific case.
It should not surprise you that copyright protects the right to (among other things) make copies. There are limited exceptions that are considered &quot;fair use&quot;, like if you reproduce a limited amount of text for educational, reporting, or review purposes. Giving your friend a copy of a large portion of the text just because they want it would almost certainly violate copyright. Whether the book is available or out-of-print has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on who holds the copyright or whether your actions violate it. This is very different from giving your friend the book itself. The book itself is covered under the &quot;first sale doctrine&quot;, meaning that by buying a copy of the book, you buy the right to sell, transfer, or dispose of that particular copy, but it doesn't give you the right to make more copies. I will note that in practice, it is vanishingly unlikely that the copyright holder would ever learn of your isolated instance of limited infringement in the first place (especially since it's out of print), much less bring legal action against you for making a single copy that did not affect their bottom line.
Assuming USA law: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2315 If you accept or buy goods that are knowingly stolen you may be fined or imprisoned. If you buy goods and later find out they were stolen you can sue for a refund. However, I'd say the likelihood of getting your money back is incredibly low.
As long as you own the copyright to the works, you can even publish the source code itself under two different licenses, which can be radically different. For example, MySQL is licensed under both a commercial and an open-source license. Given that you can publish a single piece of work as multiple licenses, it is your choice which one you wish to grant to the book or the code, as long as you own the copyright.
It would be copyright infringement. The script that you are planning to copy from is protected by law, so requires the copyright-owner's permission to create a derivative version (your own interpretation). If instead you write a completely different story inspired by the original book, you might not get sued. The problem is that there is a reasonable chance that you would accidentally duplicate part of one of the myriad adaptations, then the jury would have to decide whether it was just a coincidence, or copying.
The GPL does not explicitly specify a time within which the source code must be provided, which probably means a &quot;reasonable time&quot; is allowed. What is &quot;reasonable&quot; would eventually be evaluated by a court, if the matter ever got that far. But please note that only the copyright holder (or the holder's authorized agent) can sue for infringement. The license does not give other people a right to sue for infringement, and I doubt that any license could grant such a right. One could inform the copyright holder who could sue, but the holder need not sue, and undertaking such a suit would involve expense, time, and effort. Whether the offer to provide the source constitutes a binding agreement is not clear, and may well vary in different jurisdictions. The question does not state any particular jurisdiction.