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Questions tagged [fair-use]

An exception to the limitations that can be imposed by a copyright owner. A similar concept in the U.K. and other commonwealth jurisdictions is called "fair dealing."

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1 answer
3k views

In the US, when is fair use a defense to copyright infringement?

What is fair use in the US? When would it be a successful defense to copyright infringement?
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7 votes
1 answer
5k views

Is this copyright infringement? Is it fair use? What if I don't make any money off it?

If someone were hypothetically working on a project that required them to incorporate copies of a copyrighted work (music, movies, books, etc.), how would they know if it would be considered fair use? ...
4 votes
1 answer
290 views

What is the practical difference between "fair use" and "fair dealing" in Copyright law?

In the united-states, fair-use is a defence to copyright infringement. In other jurisdictions, particularly members or ex-members of the British Commonwealth such as united-kingdom and australia ...
Dale M's user avatar
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1 vote
2 answers
476 views

Does Fair Use of copyright apply to educational youtube channels?

I'm not an official school and I'm not registered or related to any university or any governmental education system. It's only an educational channel on Youtube that aims to teach Arabic. According to ...
user2824371's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
4k views

Length of movie clip for fair-use?

Is there some maximum length of a movie clip that can be publicly shared as "fair use?" E.g., the Youtube channel Movieclips shows clips with an average length of 2:30.
Mark's user avatar
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1 vote
2 answers
350 views

Is licensing required to use an excerpt of a song within a recording?

I'm currently recording a cover version of a song for inclusion on a compilation album which will be sold on Bandcamp. Because Bandcamp does not pay mechanical royalties, the organiser of the ...
Astralbee's user avatar
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6 votes
1 answer
220 views

Is it legal to republish lyrics?

Can a lyrics web site be legal, assuming there are no special agreements with the artists? Is publishing song lyrics considered "fair use?"
Farsk Eown's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
3k views

Can I use real life brand names in a computer game?

I'm working on a computer game, where the player will be controlling a fictional country in the 1950s. I want to make it possible for the player to purchase products with real life brand names. For ...
avl_sweden's user avatar
8 votes
3 answers
3k views

Do search engines need permission to start searching?

I was talking to my friends a few days ago about search engines and we started discussing whether or not they need permission from websites to crawl them. I looked this one up and it said on Quora ...
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7 votes
1 answer
4k views

Who owns copyright of video gameplay captures?

There are many videos on Youtube and it doesn't seem they are being removed, so one might conclude that they do not infringe copyright of the game publisher. But it could also be that for copyright ...
gaazkam's user avatar
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5 votes
2 answers
2k views

Is taking screenshots and printing pages out considered fair use, in most cases?

Making a copy of anything could be considered copyright infringement, but what if it is for personal use rather than for distribution? Suppose I print out or take a screenshot of a webpage or a ...
joseph-parsons's user avatar
5 votes
2 answers
310 views

Do we know if using computer games to make CGI for history youtubes is fair use?

Many people make youtube history documentaries using recent closed source computer games to make the graphics. This involves playing the game as released, and using the gameplay graphics to explain ...
User65535's user avatar
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3 votes
2 answers
856 views

Are there legal consequences for giving away my own musical transcriptions of copyrighted works on a website?

I've transcribed a lot of video game music in my lifetime, and am interested in making these sheet music transcriptions freely available for download on a website. I see that a lot of other websites ...
HSFlik's user avatar
  • 31
3 votes
1 answer
110 views

Frequency lists derived from copyrighted works

If someone were to publish word frequency lists derived from copyrighted films or books on their website would this constitute fair use, or be a breach of copyright? The word frequency lists would ...
JDA's user avatar
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0 votes
1 answer
153 views

How much can I quote from an academic book for my lecture notes?

I'm writing lecture notes for one of my exams, both as a process to learn the subject well and to be able to share it with other students later. The official lecture notes are just slides and are ...
Vince Varga's user avatar
0 votes
4 answers
1k views

Quoting from a book with "All rights reserved". Fair use?

Is it considered "fair use/fair dealing" to quote a short sentence or two from a book who's copyright statement mentions only "All rights reserved"? I'm writing a book and explaining some concept. To ...
Pips's user avatar
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0 votes
2 answers
130 views

Would a booklet of music and film quotes infringe on copyright?

I am considering creating a booklet with quotes from pop media for commercial use. Something like a list of one-liners from songs from the 80s for example or movies. Would this be legal? I am aware ...
Pithikos's user avatar
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0 votes
1 answer
239 views

Great Seal of The United States Non-Commercial

Is okay to use the Great Seal of The United States for Non-Commercial use?
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-1 votes
1 answer
415 views

Is Encrypted Intellectual Property still considered Intellectual Property?

TL;DR I posted a question yesterday; the answer to which gave me a new question: Is Encrypted Intellectual Property still considered Intellectual Property in most (or, relevant) cases? Here's some ...
Bango's user avatar
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34 votes
7 answers
9k views

Can "Dumb Starbucks" be legally considered Fair Use as satire or parody?

About a year ago, a new, familiar-looking coffee shop opened in LA. Their reasoning for this was, basically, that it's making fun of the popular coffeehouse chain and is thus fair use: Naturally, it ...
fstanis's user avatar
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19 votes
2 answers
7k views

Is it legal to download and run pirated abandonware because I'm curious about the software?

Is downloading Windows 95 and running it just because I'm curious about it legal? Purpose and character of the use: it's noncommercial, and I am doing it to learn about the software, but I'm not sure ...
Someone's user avatar
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10 votes
4 answers
10k views

D&D Monsters and Copyright

We are making a college board game, and would like to know if we can use a few monsters from dnd to make our game. We don't use the same name as you do, just the images from online and the books.
Louis Lunn's user avatar
7 votes
2 answers
1k views

Can I sell my notes on a book without copyright infringment?

I read a machine learning book. I invested a lot of time to make extensive and clear notes. Some concepts required a lot of research to understand. I have explained some concepts in my own way. ...
user1201's user avatar
7 votes
1 answer
629 views

Can I release someone else's work under Creative Commons or some other license, if it's fair use?

Let's say a website has some content. You can take a small amount, what would usually constitute fair use, and incorporate it into a larger work. You know put this under a Creative Commons license or ...
Christopher King's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
2k views

Is it legal to use movie frames or actor images as online avatars?

Browsing around social networks and this community, I see that there are users that use pictures of actors from TV series as their avatar. I don't want to point to anyone's profile to give an ...
Constantinus's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
595 views

Is it legal to record streaming video for time shifting?

In the UK there is an explicit exception to copyright for the purpose of time shifting: Details of the exceptions to copyright that allow limited use of copyright works without the permission of the ...
Dave's user avatar
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4 votes
2 answers
2k views

Personal copying of source code from a programming book

Many books on computer programming publish source code listings and example programs as part of the printed book to demonstrate some aspect of the language. When I'm learning from such books, I ...
Brandin's user avatar
  • 136
4 votes
1 answer
248 views

Is it legal to sell a 3d scan of a car in the USA?

Suppose someone were to provide high quality 3D scans of vehicles for the off-road industry. Would it be legal to sell these scans via an online marketplace? They would be either component, chassis, ...
kbel's user avatar
  • 41
3 votes
1 answer
4k views

Is taking notes copyright infringement?

If I'm taking notes on a book I'm studying would I technically be infringing copyright if I didn't properly cite the source on the piece of paper the notes are on? I got curious because I was watching ...
Jankin's user avatar
  • 357
3 votes
2 answers
2k views

Can you reuse the text of a contract you've signed with one party with another party?

Relations between individuals and business entities are governed by law; what's not specified in the law, can be specified by a mutually-executed contract. Generally, one party provides the actual ...
cnst's user avatar
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3 votes
1 answer
1k views

Does musical satire really require permission from the copyright holder?

I was reading this article on American art-rock/new-wave band Devo in The New Yorker and came across this claim that puzzles me: It’s a little unclear why Warner, once they learned that Devo wanted ...
Giacomo1968's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
138 views

In Oracle America v. Google, what was the District Court jury's rationale behind its "fair use" finding?

In the case of Oracle America v. Google, the District Court of Northern California ruled on whether or not Google's reimplementation of 37 Java APIs constituted fair use. My question is, how - in the ...
moonman239's user avatar
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2 votes
1 answer
491 views

What is the "area" of copyright claims and fair use of songs?

There are many lyrics videos and other audio visualizer videos using songs they clearly don't have ownership own. Many of these receive a copyright strike on Youtube and are subsequently taken down, ...
q.Then's user avatar
  • 123
2 votes
2 answers
394 views

Large YouTuber: Copyright Lawsuit vs Fair Use

A channel with close to 1.5-million subscribers on YouTube, H3H3Productions, is being sued on the grounds that their video infringes another author's copyright. Their channel essentially reviews ...
8protons's user avatar
  • 181
2 votes
1 answer
1k views

Is it legal to use scenes from famous TV show FRIENDS to create pop up museum in New York city?

Could someone create a museum based on a TV show without violating copyright law? Imagine, for instance, The Museum of Friends, including replicas of the following parts: Full-scale set of Monica's ...
Maksim Kondratenko's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
449 views

Can I use the rating of different restaurants from different websites like Yelp on my own website?

I am thinking of creating a website with restaurants ratings. You would be able to search for restaurants and in the result list you would see the name of the restaurant and the ratings of different ...
jnbdz's user avatar
  • 123
1 vote
2 answers
225 views

Fair use: is legality of use determined separately from legality of source?

Youtube and other content sites have extensive resources (Youtube Fair Use Guidelines) that describe the conditions for fair-use. However, these do not contain adequate treatments of legal content ...
soundssilver's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
158 views

Am I allowed to reproduce work published on a website for free which bears an "all rights reserved" tag?

I'm aware of this answer Quoting from a book with "All rights reserved". Fair use? but my case is slightly different, so I will ask another question. There is a website which contains ...
B''H Bi'ezras -- Boruch Hashem's user avatar
1 vote
2 answers
126 views

Must a work be "essential" for fair use to apply?

In comments on this answer (now moved to chat) user supercat wrote: While there seems to be a belief that use of short clips is automatically fair use, a key requirement of fair use is that the ...
David Siegel's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
293 views

Using short quotes from published, well-known literary works in a product [duplicate]

In order to create and sell a card game with each card having a short (25-50 words) quote from a book, is a licensing agreement needed or is this fair use? Assume the books are recent enough to be ...
yycroman's user avatar
  • 113
1 vote
1 answer
615 views

Are names used within a TV show (for example, the name of a fictional business) automatically copyrighted?

According to the personal account of one of the founders of the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co, he waited hours outside the gates of Paramount Studios to license the name "Bubba Gump Shrimp" (which first ...
CodyBugstein's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
133 views

Using someone else's registered trademark

This seems like a very textbook and common question, but I can't find it anywhere. Here's an example of the situation: A card game called Cards Against Humanity sometimes uses other company's names ...
Daniel's user avatar
  • 555
1 vote
1 answer
378 views

Am I allowed to open source my Dr. Seuss txt files on GitHub?

I've been working on building a Dr. Seuss dataset which provides training data for my recurrent neural network. The goal is to use machine learning to get the computer to generate Seuss-like works. ...
Bango's user avatar
  • 127
1 vote
1 answer
1k views

copyright, fair use and online dictionaries/translations/word list

For a language app I need short word bilingual definitions and word lists, containing info such as word frequency and part of speech. I would like to use a selection of many online sources to do this....
moodymudskipper's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
256 views

Do I need copyright permission for a blog

I am thinking of creating a sports blog, and would like to know if you need permission from a team or the league to write this blog. For example if I am writing a article about the Philadelphia ...
tygrim's user avatar
  • 11
1 vote
1 answer
78 views

Is it legal to upload short, publicly available, source files on Stack Exchange to ask about them?

I once asked a question on tex.SE about a (LaTeX) title page template that my university provides for master's theses. Since the people over at tex.SE require Minimal Working Examples, I uploaded a ...
Bananach's user avatar
  • 111
0 votes
3 answers
13k views

Is it illegal to remove a watermark?

Inspired by this poorly worded question on graphicdesign.stackexchange: I want to remove a text watermark Is illegal to remove watermarks? Off the top of my head I can think of 3 possible legitimate ...
LateralTerminal's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
97 views

Is a video demonstrating a small portion of a movie sync fair use?

I want to make a YouTube video that talks about a movie synchronization (not that specific one). Could I reasonably assume that showing a very small portion of the synchronization would be counted as ...
user avatar
0 votes
2 answers
96 views

How to properly add creator information when the art work is done with other companies' logo?

For a straightforward example, I would like to add a watermark on all the pictures hosted on my website, but at the same time, some images have other companies' logos and other text. Sure I don't own ...
Maxfield's user avatar
  • 569