Questions tagged [copyright]
For questions about the property right statutorily granted to creative works. Please see the tag wiki and FAQ before asking the question.
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Recreate copyright information on merged and minified files
When a web-application is finished we minify our source and combine all different CSS and JS files into one, to speed up the performance (pageload).
As I thought about it, I recognize that some tools ...
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How does "poor man's copyright" work?
In this answer on another SE, it is suggested that the anonymous authors of a piece of software might use a "poor man's copyright" technique to establish that they possessed the work before it was ...
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When is making a subtitle file for a commercial movie legal?
For example, on OpenSubtitles, a website which offers 3.5 million subtitles we can read Disclaimer:
These files are NOT illegal warez downloads, we only offer files that we believe we are free to ...
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How much of a work needs to be used for it to be derivative?
Consider for example the starship enterprise (registry NCC1701) from the star trek tv series. If someone takes a picture of the ship from the tv show and sticks it on a poster, it is clearly a ...
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How do I convince google to take down this page which contains people's leaked e-mails and passwords?
Out of curiousity, I googled my own e-mail to see what kind of results would show up. To my surprise, I found a website (blogger) that contained people's e-mails and leaked passwords for a service. ...
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Legality of using data obtained by hacking to make a blog post
As a data scientist, based in the UK, I am thinking about downloading the recently leaked Ashley Madison data, producing some interesting statistics (none of them incriminating), and using them to ...
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Copyright of passport pictures
Let's say Person1 takes camera pictures of the following items and releases them as public domain:
The external cover of her own USA passport
The external cover of the USA passport of a willing ...
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It is appropriate to include Google Maps screenshot acknowledging it is from Google?
As my web spider was crawling, I found this site. It uses a Google Maps screenshot without using the widget or acknowledging that it is from Google. Is this legal? Should I inform the site to remove ...
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US Can public survey or experimental data be used in profit content if cited?
If I'm looking to build an app or write a book and I wish to use statistics, am I allowed to basically use their numbers as long as I cite where it is coming from? If I do make a profit from it, do I ...
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At what point can a computer-generated file infringe copyright?
In general it is illegal to download a copyrighted file without paying the copyright owner.
But is having metadata (hash) of the copyrighted material legal?
What if I've run a program (like Mathgen)...
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How does the exclusive right to public display apply, e.g., to t-shirts?
17 USC §106(5) says that the copyright holder of work holds the exclusive right to display the work publicly:
(5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, ...
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Can anyone record a cover of a song I put on SoundCloud?
My friend asked me if he could record a cover of a song that I put on SoundCloud called Gratitude (License: All Rights Reserved).
What legal rights does my friend have? Does he need my permission?
...
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When selling my own cover version of a song, is it legal to mention its appearance in a film for promotion?
Let's say I wish to record my own version of the song Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon.
It is obvious that I'm required to pay royalties to the original owner of the song.
But while promoting my song, ...
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Using Paintings for Commercial Purposes
I am in the process of developing an IOS application that displays paintings as part of it, ranging from the Mona Lisa to Picasso to Bob Ross's landscapes (there are many others in between). This app ...
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Song Lyric Sites
How do song lyrics sites (such as azlyrics.com) legally operate? It seems that they can't claim fair use because they are making money (ads) and that they are publishing complete song lyrics.