How do I copyright songs under &quot;Creative Commons?&quot; I have some songs that I want to to copyright. Some of them I want to copyright under "Creative Commons" and some I want to copyright under "All Rights Reserved." I know how to copyright songs, but how do I apply "Creative Commons" or "All Rights Reserved" to a song?
To apply "All rights reserved" to a song, you write the three words "All rights reserved" in your copyright notice (see the "PS" below for the rationale for doing this). To apply a Creative Commons public license to a song, you use the Creative Commons License Chooser to generate a license for your song. Then you add the HTML-code generated by the License Chooser to the web-page where the song is available to the public (for streaming or for download). PS: Since the year 2000, adding the string "All rights reserved" no longer has a legal effect in any jurisdiction. According to the Berne convention, all rights are automatically reserved as soon as you create a song or any other creative work. However, I recommend that you assert your rights with this notice. I've come across people who believe that it is perfectly legal to use a work for non-commercial purposes if there is no assertion of rights attached to the work. They are wrong, but adding the notice may avoid some misunderstandings.
To do so I used some images and Gifs which may be under copyright but since I don't earn money for myself and there is no company backing me I was hoping that there is some protection for private persons like me who just want to showcase the project. Sorry. If your website is public facing (i.e. not password protected and available only to family and close friends), you need to follow copyright law. There is no exception to copyright just because a project is run by an individual for non-commercial purposes. I am also insecure about the GDPR regulations since I give users the ability to create an account and try it out. Your profile says you're in the EU. Then you need to comply with the GDPR. Is there any way to protect me against greedy lawyers and companies? Could I write something like: "This website is a peace of art" and save myself with arguments like "artistic freedom" or "free speech"? Nope. A controversial website run by Peter Sunde had at one point a "free speech" disclaimer (similar to the one you propose) posted. However, Sunde did never use this defense in court: Finnish court slaps Peter Sunde with €350k fine. If he had shown up in court, I am pretty sure the court would have told him that such a disclaimer has no legal merit. The only protection that will make you completely safe is to adhere to the law.
In the US, at least, facts - like the speed of light, the name of a dinosaur or the moons of Jupiter - are not copyrightable. But the words or pictures, designs and original work used to express and present those facts in books, websites and other publications by individuals and publishers are copyrightable. (Original work doesn't need to be published to be copyrighted; it is copyrighted at the moment of creation.) See How can &quot;factual&quot; intellectual property be protected? Plagiarism can be copyright infringement; it's copying and presenting work of someone else's as your own. But not all copyright infringement is plagiarism in the sense that someone is claiming others' work as their own: if you're selling a T-shirt with an unlicensed design, you're not really claiming the design is yours; you're just trying to make money. If you use all or part of an image or a quote or a song from a copyrighted source in your own work, you need permission and attribute the source. Or, you have to decide if the amount of the copyrighted material you are using might be Fair Use and you don't need permission. But decisions on what might constitute Fair Use are ultimately decided in court, because that's where can you end up when a person or a publisher sues you for alleged copyright infringement.
A song with the same melody and different lyrics is a derivative work. It does not matter whether the song is to be sung for money, or not. The copyright owner still retains the rights to the melody, and can deny anyone permission to use it in a derivative work. Furthermore, using the derivative song to make a statement does not restrict or reduce the rights of the copyright holder. Refer to Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., 510 U.S. 569 (1994), below. See: Derivative work Derivative works can be created with the permission of the copyright owner or from works in the public domain. (...) The copyright for the derivative work only covers the additions or changes to the original work, not the original itself. The owner of the original work retains control over the work, and in many circumstances can withdraw the license given to someone to create derivative works. And: Why is parody considered fair use, but satire isn't? As the Supreme Court explained in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., “Parody needs to mimic an original to make its point, and so has some claim to use the creation of its victim’s (or collective victims’) imagination, whereas satire can stand on its own two feet and so requires justification for the very act of borrowing.” Also: Mechanical license Within copyright law within the United states, such mechanical licenses are compulsory; any party may obtain a license without permission of the license holder by paying a set license fee, that as of 2018, was set at 9.1 cents per composition or 1.75 cents per minute of composition, whichever is more, which are to go to the composition copyright holder. (...) In American law, US Code Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 115(a)(2) states: &quot;A compulsory license includes the privilege of making a musical arrangement of the work to the extent necessary to conform it to the style or manner of interpretation of the performance involved, but the arrangement shall not change the basic melody or fundamental character of the work ...&quot; thus preventing mechanical licenses being used to make substantially derivative works of a piece of music. (...) For example: Puff Daddy wants to sample the opening riff from “Every Breath You Take” by The Police. (...) He is free to hire musicians to reproduce the Police's sound, but he cannot copy from any phonorecord with only a mechanical license.
I can see two points you might be confused about in your question. 1. Works can be in the public domain without having a CC license The Wikipedia statement and the government statement are not inconsistent with each other; just because something isn't available under a Creative Commons license doesn't necessarily mean that it is restricted by copyright. In fact, CC licenses are moot for material in the public domain: When a work is in the public domain, it is free for use by anyone for any purpose without restriction under copyright law. Public domain is the purest form of open/free, since no one owns or controls the material in any way. ... Creative Commons licenses do not affect the status of a work that is in the public domain under applicable law, because our licenses only apply to works that are protected by copyright. So if a work is in the public domain, you can use it for whatever purpose you wish (though see below), without restriction or attribution. This is less restrictive than the various Creative Commons licenses, which require various levels of attribution, non-modification, etc. depending on the license chosen by the creator. 2. Trademark protections are separate from copyright protections Your quote from the government website implies that these logos might be trademarked, even if they're not under copyright; this is entirely possible. Roughly speaking, trademark protections keep other people from trading on your good name &amp; reputation; copyright protections keep other people from directly profiting from your creative endeavors. If another party creates a product that uses a trademark in a way that would create confusion among consumers, the trademark holder can sue for that. Depending on how you use the logos, you might run afoul of these protections. See this Q&amp;A for futher details under US law. (Australian law may differ a bit but I would expect that the general principles are the same.)
Those posts are talking about making a modified copy of a copyrighted work. The key word is copy. You are not making a copy. Copyright is not about how a physical embodiment of a copyrighted work is treated. You can burn a book and shred a newspaper. Neither of those actions is making a copy. Also, cutting up a newspaper and pasting a picture on your wall has nothing to do with any “derivative works” issue.
Your question is whether you can copy instrumental portions of recorded music, and modify it to create a new work, without permission. The answer is that this is illegal. This would be creating a "derivative work", and under copyright law, only the copyright holder has the right to authorize creation of a derivative work. Whether or not you have paid for a copy of a recording, you would still need a separate license to legally extract and use part of a recording. This includes taking just one instrument, and includes taking just a part of one instrument. Material on Youtube is subject to different licenses: in some cases items are free of restrictions, in some cases, you can't legally copy them at all. The standard Youtube license does not allow any copying. Copyright infringement of music is rather common. Enforcement of copyright must be pursued by the copyright holder, and you would need to discuss your specific plans with a copyright attorney to determine your probability of getting sued. Ultimately, you might get away with minimal copying, relying on a fair use defense (you still get sued, but you might prevail and not have to pay). There are street rumors that there is an N-note threshold for copyright infringement, where people often pick numbers from 3 to 7, but in fact there is no clear rule. This resource assembles relevant case law. Bridgeport Music v. Dimension Films, in the 6th District, establishes the rule that any amount of copying is infringement, whereas VMG Salsoul, LLC v. Ciccone in the 9th District rejects that finding and allowed a case of .23 seconds (230 milliseconds) of copying. The "de minimis" doctrine is independent of "fair use" which has a statutory basis, but seems to have arisen from similarity doctrines which are involved in proving that copying took place.
You cannot. Ideas are not subject to copyright protection: see here. Your expression is subject to copyright protection, but if you intend to publish the expression (after you write it), you have to find a way to do so without surrendering your exclusive right, as you did for example with your question (read the TOS for Stackexchange).