Publish rewritten sheet music I used a scorewriter to notate a musical piece. I did so by ear and I do not own the original sheet music. (If it makes any difference: I wasn't able to find the sheet music for sale anywhere online) Would it be legal to publish it on a site like www.jellynote.com? To be clear: I do not intend to make any profit from it. I just want to share my work with other people. I would be especially interested in German Law. (And maybe US-Law since it will probably be uploaded to a server located in the US. Although I don't know if that's relevant)
Copyright in musical works extends to the composition itself, not just to the sheet music (as you notice, there may not even be any sheet music). If the musical work is protected by copyright then publishing a transcription of that work would be a potential violation of the copyright, subject to exceptions such as fair-use and fair dealing. If the piece is in the public domain, then you can publish your transcription.
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. It is legal to update the copyright automatically. It is also legal to put the wrong year, whether it is 100 years ago, or 100 years in the future. (See 17 USC 406, which explains that an error in the date is only relevant for works published prior to March 1, 1989.) Today, you can put whatever you'd like there, as the copyright notice on a website has very little legal meaning. There are 2 main reasons for this: All content is automatically copyright protected whether you specify the copyright or not. (United States Copyright Office: Copyright Notices: "U.S. law no longer requires the use of a copyright notice") It's common knowledge that it is extremely easy to update a website and its content, so if you ever get into a legal battle where you need to prove which party created something first, the copyright date written on a website will not be considered valid evidence. Other mechanisms will need to be used, such as registered copyright or perhaps even code vaults with a trusted 3rd party. However, by displaying a proper copyright notice, "the court will not give any weight to a defendant’s use of an innocent infringement defense". (Copyright notices) That being said, what should you do? The most popular options are: Don't display a copyright notice at all. Display copyright without a year. Display the current year. Display a range from the first publish year to the current year. Display the year of last content publish. Note that the last option (display the year of the last content publish) is what some copyright experts still recommend today. But IMHO that is an outdated practice and is pointless. If your site has 1000 webpages on it, and you add one more page this year and update the site-wide copyright year along with it, that obviously does not reset the true copyright year of the other 1000 pages. Also, some people believe that a website with a copyright year older than the current year makes the site appear stale, which may hurt the site's reputation. If you feel that your website could fall into that category, then an auto-update or no year at all is probably the best way to go.
According to the current version of the TOS: You own the rights to the content you create and post on Medium. By posting content to Medium, you give us a nonexclusive license to publish it on Medium Services, including anything reasonably related to publishing it (like storing, displaying, reformatting, and distributing it). In consideration for Medium granting you access to and use of the Services, you agree that Medium may enable advertising on the Services, including in connection with the display of your content or other information. We may also use your content to promote Medium, including its products and content. We will never sell your content to third parties without your explicit permission. This explicitly says you own your content, although Medium has some rights to do some things. And they won't sell it without permission, so unless Medium itself is publishing this book, it would seem to be copyright infringement. (Of course, I don't know what the TOS said when you originally wrote the article.) If what was copied was not copyrightable (like a quote from the Constitution, or a simple uncreative graph of something obvious) then it wouldn't be infringement. But your article was probably more than that.
You automatically have copyright protection for what you create. A collection of numeric answers to math equations probably would not qualify (lack of requisite creativity), but certainly anything that counts as a "paper" is protected.
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.
You can report it to the publisher(s) Protection of copyright is a matter for the individual rights holder: some (I’m looking at you Disney) are vigilant, thorough and draconian in protecting their rights, others don’t care at all. Unless you are the rights holder it’s none of your business. In much the same way that the guy charging your neighbour for 4 hours gardening but being long gone in 2 isn’t. If you like your neighbour or feel duty bound to do something, you tell them and then leave it to them what they do with it. This is not a matter for the authorities as it doesn’t rise to the level of criminal copyright infringement. Just like the gardener above, this isn’t a crime.
One principle of copyright law is that if you can prove independent authorship, there cannot be liability no matter how similar your work is to the prior work. "If by some magic a man who had never known it were to compose anew Keats's 'Ode on a Grecian Urn,' he would be an 'author,' and if he copyrighted it, others might not copy that poem, though they might of course copy Keats's." (Sheldon v. MGM Pictures Corp., 81 F.2d 49, 54 (2d Cir. 1936)). Now, of course, the challenge is proving that you've never heard a given piece of music, or never read a particular work of fiction. If you have, even unconscious copying exposes to liability. And if the plaintiff can prove that you had access (such as the scriptwriter who sent a copy to a movie studio), they will have an even easier time proving the copying. If there is no proof of copying or not-copying, the copying can be proved circumstantially either through expert testimony or the jury's evaluation. The expert might testify something like "There is an identical tonal progression in these two songs, even though they were written in different keys. There were a million different ways the songs could have been written, but they are identical in this respect." The jury can consider that information and find the defendant liable. Or, the judge may simply tell the jury, "You may listen to these two songs, and find the defendant liable if you find them to be substantially similar to the extent that it is more likely than not that the defendant copied the plaintiff." TL;DR: The process can be conclusive, but if it isn't, then the output will be the evidence that the jury will consider.