Questions tagged [public-domain]
Questions on use and classification of intellectual property as "public domain"
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Is the public domain revocable?
If a work enters the public domain, can someone "privatize" it by trying to copyright/trademark/etc. the same work without changes?
user51647
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How is Midjourney's ToS Legal?
I feel this is fairly straightforward, but I have seen no explanation as to why Midjourney is allowed to restrict the "copyright" or commercial use rights of their users, paid or otherwise, ...
user50887
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Is an exact match necessary to prove trademark infringement?
For the sake of example, let's use Robert E. Howard's character "Conan, the Barbarian". The author died in June 11, 1936, Cross Plains, Texas, United States.
As seen above, it's been almost ...
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Is an image published in a book in Australia in 1925 public domain in the US?
I want to use an art image that was published in Australia in 1925 and publish it in the US.
Australian copyright law states that the image is protected for 70 years after the artist's death, who died ...
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How can you make a fresh new translation of the bible without running into copyright problems?
I have been looking for open source versions of the bible written in Hebrew, with annotations, such as the literal english meaning of each Hebrew term, the definition of each Hebrew term, the part of ...
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Can I use MasterCard and Visa logos as examples in a scientific publication?
I have a peer-reviewed paper about to get published, in an experimental psychology topic. (The journal is Memory.) In one of the figures in the paper I used MasterCard and Visa card logos as examples (...
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Are designs explained in academic publications considered to be in public domain if there isn't yet a patent application about it?
In academic journals, sometimes the new approach they describe seems so promising that companies may want to use those designs or designs made/inspired from the principles mentioned in the publication....
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Can patents be featured/explained in a youtube video i.e. are patent descriptions/images in public domain?
Is it legally allowed to use images, which are obtained from patent forms, possibly with modifying/coloring them or left as is, inside youtube videos? In the same vein with images how about the text i....
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Selling Reading Guides For Novels
Can I create and sell reading guides for novels on teacher resource sites such as Teacher Pay Teacher without getting into copyright issues. I would, of course credit, the author for all of the book ...
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Copyright Ownership of a Translated Article Appearing in a Book in Which an Online Translator was Used
As a follow-up to Attributing the Assistance of an Online Translator for a Book's Chapter---Is It Necessary?, and at the suggestion of @DaleM:
QUESTION: Would an author of a book who incorporates ...
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Are maps from the Massachusetts State Transportation Library in the public domain?
MBTA is the transit agency for Greater Boston, Massachussetts, USA.
The website for the Massachusetts State Transportation Library contains many old MBTA maps and other transit-related items. A user ...
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How to determine which national copyright legislation applies if I put someone else's work online? [duplicate]
Suppose there is a work by author A, whose copyright expires tomorrow (i.e. it goes into public domain) in their country of birth C1. I upload it (tomorrow) online on a blogging site by a company E ...
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Can I scan in pre-1923 photographs from books and upload them to wikipedia without violating copyright?
Arcadia Publishing has the Images of America book series, many of which have pre-1923 photographs.
Same thing for Eyewitness Books. For example they have a book on money which has images of coins and ...
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Will the YU-GI-OH! card copyright ever end?
Day by day they bring out new cards, I wonder if someday the royalties will end and if so when approximately?
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Does an LLC Protect a Self-Publisher Personally from Inncocent Infringement of a Copyright?
This question is related to Legal Considerations When Self-Publishing a Book and motivated by comments made by David Siegel therein.
When self-publishing a re-typeset book, say on Amazon, that one ...
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Legal Considerations When Self-Publishing a Book
According to https://wordsrated.com/self-published-book-sales-statistics/, 300 million self-published books are sold each year.
I am thinking about, in the future, uploading (i.e., self-publishing) ...
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Who, if anyone, owns the copyright to mugshots in the United States?
In the United States, who, if anyone, owns the copyright to mugshots (or perhaps any "work", if the principles generalize) produced by federal, state, or local employees?
If there is too ...
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Can an original image of the god Anubis on a t-shirt infringe trademark or copyright?
I sell t-shirts online. One of them features a picture of the ancient Egyptian god Anubis (my original art). Some people who viewed it said Anubis is a trademarked for clothing and I may be infringing....
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Is it possible to combine public domain with other licenses
I am a programmer and I am writing an application that depends on libraries with different licenses (for example, MIT, Apache or GPL), can I publish my application as a Public Domain?
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"Public domain": Can I sell prints of the James Webb Space Telescope?
The new telescope delivers stunning images of the cosmos which are available on NASA's web site.
The content use policy page states:
Unless otherwise specifically stated, no claim to copyright is ...
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Are commercially published British fashion plates from early 1800s in Britain in public domain in USA?
I'm designing a deck of card that will incorporate many British fashion plates from roughly 1790 to 1825. The magazines in which they were published have gone out of business long ago.
I am working ...
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Are the Quotations in a Book of Quotations Copyrighted?
I have a book of quotations that displays a 1967 copyright. I would like to use some of them in a current work of mine that I intend to publish.
Many of the quotations in the 1967 book I can trace ...
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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 ...
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I bought a premium domain and now the registrar says that domain wasn't really available for purchase
I purchased a domain name from a popular domain registrar, I immediately got the confirmation email and receipt for the purchased domain but the domain wasn't added to my account so I contacted the ...
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Can Disney use its trademarks to stop reproductions of Mickey Mouse even after "Steamboat Willie" enters the public domain?
Steamboat Willie will enter the public domain in the USA in 2024. Does this mean that people in the USA will then be able to reproduce the Mickey Mouse depicted in that film and make derivative works ...
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Is all sex offender registry information public domain in the USA?
In 1994, Congress mandated that all states develop sex offender registries. Two years later, Megan's Law provided that sex offender information must be made public. National Institute of Justice, &...
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Copyright transcription of public domain music?
Can I copyright my transcription of, say, a public domain Mozart symphony for brass quintet?
I downloaded a public domain PDF of a Mozart symphony. I used the musical content from the PDF and created ...
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"Publishing" by sending idea to potential manufacturers
Related questions:
Way to Claim an Idea for under $200
How to prevent others from getting a patent on my idea?
One person patenting a biology researcher's published idea
Is publication sufficient ...
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Can I use Google Cloud text-to-speech to create and monetize an audiobook from a public domain book?
I have text for a book in the public domain. I use Google Cloud speech-to-text to convert the book into an audio format. Can I distribute/monetize the resulting audiobook as I wish?
Previous question ...
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Can I use an abandoned servicemark for my app name?
There is a service that has the same name I plan to use in an app; however, the servicemark was filed on Jan 23 of 2007 and abandoned on March 26 of 2008.
Since the (single member) LLC that owned it ...
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Is the superhero American Crusader in the public domain? If so, what aspects of the character can be safely used?
I'm planning on making a comic that has a few public domain superheroes in it, among which is the character of American Crusader. I'm quite interested in knowing how much of the character, if any, I ...
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Is "Space Thunder Kids" in the public domain? If so, how?
Is "Space Thunder Kids" in the public domain? If so, how?
"It Came From Public Domain" apparently did an episode on it, but I don't think that means much.
The Internet Archive also ...
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Are works created by US government employees in the performance of their duties treated as public domain outside the US?
Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government, but the United States Government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred ...
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Does public domain give me the right to take old work out of context, such as claimed in this SMBC comic?
A humorous comic by SMBC claims that, since an 1884 foreword written by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) is out of copyright, anyone can write any book, include that foreword, and add "with a foreword ...
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Is the Scarborough Fair Melody Really in the Public Domain?
According to Wikimedia Commons:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarborough-Fair-Melody.png
the melody to the tune Scarborough Fair (which had been popularized in the 1960s by Simon and ...
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Can I convert an emoji to PNG or SVG and use them as an clipart in my videos,games,logos etc
Hey everyone I am bit confused with emojis license. I have made a website that convert an emoji into PNG and SVG.
Curious to know if they can be used as an clipart(commercial purpose) in videos,games,...
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Distribute Public Domain Material Hosted on a Website
There is a website that hosts text for a book I am interested in which is in the public domain. The website has a standard copyright icon on the bottom with the text "All Rights Reserved". ...
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Can I "license" my project under the public domain if it uses MIT licensed NPM packages?
I'm creating a project in TypeScript with express right now, which I would like to pulish under the public domain once I release it. However, express is MIT licensed, and the TypeScript NPM package is ...
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How can I obtain a NY LLC Biennial Statement?
In New York, limited liability corporations are required to file biennial reports.
Are these biennial reports public documents, and if so, how can a member of the public get a copy of an LLC's ...
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Archaeological sketches of visual works of art in public domain
In several jurisdictions, faithful reproductions of visual works of art in public domain are not subjected to copyright. This include both US with its Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. decision as ...
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Can we be sued for using a meme for naming our company?
Once something like a meme goes viral and is widely used by people, it
cannot legally function as a trademark, he said. It will typically
take the office around four months to deliver a decision on ...
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Can one download the original Hebrew bible text from websites that say "all rights reserved"?
For example, there's a website that has the entire hebrew bible text online [and I assume the original hebrew letters [without translation] is public domain [correct me if I'm wrong]] but the website ...
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Trademarking Public Domain Material
I have a question about a public domain self-help book that has lapsed copyrights in the USA and has been in the public domain for a few decades.
The organization is still in operation and they ...
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Is CBS Radio Mystery Theater in the Public Domain in the US?
The Internet Archive says it is but that's just something a user wrote. I can't find any information on this elsewhere.
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Can I include public domain pictures in my book, without explicit attribution/consent?
Currently I'm writing a book, in which it would be interesting to include some relevant pictures. The pictures I'm planning to include are in the public domain. Here is an example.
That picture, ...
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Used public domain image from Wikimedia commons; Image was removed after I used it. What happens now?
I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this, but here goes.
So, a couple months ago, I joined a video contest in which I used an image from Wikimedia commons. At the time it was listed as ...
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Making public/open-source datasets from royalty-free image sources
I am working on a small face-related dataset that will be publicly available for open research. I have looked into many copyright-free image sources like https://pikwizard.com/ and https://www.pexels....
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What happens if you create something (e.g. a book/game/show) which includes copyrighted content, then release it into the public domain?
I assume it might be a problem if you have a Patreon or something where people support you for creating the content since you can technically be considered making money off of it even though it's ...
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Using fonts with a pirated version of Photoshop? Violating copyrighted materials?
So Windows and Photoshop copyrighted most of their fonts.
Now let's say my friend uses a pirated version of Photoshop and Windows and creates some photo with subtitle or a meme.
Then what?
Did he ...
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Public domain or not so "public domain"?
Works created by the U.S. government's institutions are in the public domain within the U.S. territory - not around the world.
However if the U.S. government institution with such clarification on ...
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