Hot answers tagged legal
17
I am not a lawyer. The observations below apply in the US, I don't know much about international copyright law outside the specific area of software copyrights.
Here in the US, if you wrote something, you own the copyright on it, period. All you need in order to assert that copyright is proof that you wrote something, and when. There are many ways to do ...
12
Officially, the reason to incorporate is to protect your personal assets if someone decides to sue you over your writing. If you're incorporated, they would instead have to sue the corporation, and your personal property can't be touched.
My own reason for incorporating was to get access to only-somewhat-ridiculously-priced health insurance. Buying health ...
11
IANAL disclaimer but generally character names themselves cannot be copyrighted. They may be trademarked but only if the literary work/movie/or a related product were named after the character. So, trademark would only come into play for secondary characters in widely merchandised works. In theory you'd be completely safe as long as your characters ...
11
USB drives are notoriously unreliable. To use only USB drives for backups is enormously risky.
Dropbox is great... for synchronizing files. I use Dropbox to synchronize files between my two computers, and to make my files available on my iPad and iPhone.
I'm concerned about using Dropbox as the sole backup system, and here's why. A few months ago, the disk ...
10
The thing is: Not all publishers wrote their contracts to revert the rights back to the author just because the book went out of print! The fact that they were doing nothing with the book does not necessarily mean that the rights revert to you.
You need to have your lawyer look over your contract. If you can't get hold of your contract (you lost your copy, ...
9
Creative Commons licenses are about sharing your work. The basic right you grant with one of these licenses is, that every noncommercial user can copy your work and give it to others, even over filesharing.
Other than that, CC-licenses have some restrictions, that can be applied:
BY (attribution) - the creator has to be credited (all CC-licenses include ...
8
Before I give some suggestions, the best advice I can give you is speak to a lawyer directly about your personal situation. Unless there is one on the forum, I really wouldn't take any other advice as gospel, including what I'm going to say below. Also, legal issues will differ from country to country, so what's true in the US may not hold true in the UK ...
7
A nearly identical question appears at Stanford University's Copyright and Fair Use Center:
Dear Rich: I have a question. I’ll be using a lot of screenshots from
different websites in my book. Do I need to get permission for that or
is it a fair use?
The 'Rich' in question is Richard Stim, the corporate council for Nolo, which claims to be "one of ...
6
"Similar plot points" is a little vague. Boy Meets Girl, Boy Loses Girl, Boy Gets Girl Back are "plot points" which have been used since Gilgamesh was a teenager. (ETA and Boy Meets Boy as well, as Gilgamesh himself proved. And Girl Meets Girl.) The question is whether your specific setting, characters, time, and action are similar to the movie which hits ...
6
A simple solution is to send yourself an email containing important or recently changed files. If your email provider is something like Gmail then you have essentially limitless space for ever. Gmail doesn't (afaik) assert copyright claims on your email content beyond what is necessary to store and display your email. But if you ARE concerned, you can always ...
6
In response to your specific question, I would say that ghostwriting is NOT illegal. However, I would say that it IS unethical, unfair, cheating, and a violation of academic policies. We had a discussion on this topic on the meta site a short while back after someone had asked about how to lower his writing standards to make it seem more like he was a ...
6
As long as you address the ownership of the trademark and make it clear that you are not affiliated with the trademark owner, there shouldn't be a problem. Also, make sure you capitalize their trademarked names or brands. For example: Crisco oil or Fanta soda or Microsoft Office. Below is an example of a disclaimer you could/should include to ensure that you ...
6
That is a marketing ploy that they are using to claim that they provide royalties that might be considered to be higher than the average royalties paid by other publishers. Considering that these royalties are usually pretty meager at best anyway, that probably isn't much of a claim!
As far as determining what the industry average really is, it would ...
5
It's going to be difficult to give an absolute answer to any legal question since laws and their interpretation vary widely by jurisdiction. Also, IANAL.
But, in general terms - are you looking for a way to see it as illegal to sell the papers? I can see buying (and using) the essays being seen as fraud, as well as being against academic honesty policies, ...
5
Yes, this is violating copyright. You're essentially copying their book. And I'm guessing that you're doing it for financial gain, which makes it even worse.
Check the inside of their book for the copyright blurb. I bet there's something about 'no reproducing, in whole or in part, without permission'. Your website would be reproducing without ...
5
Using a trademark term in a title is known as Nominative Use. There is no problem with this as long as you don't suggest sponsorship or endorsement by the company. Also you can't use their font/images. For more info see this article on Wikipedia.
5
In general, there are no copyright issues that you need to worry about as long as you're truthfully reporting your own experiences. In particular, there is nothing that prevents you from mentioning companies, products, locations, or people by name, so long as you are not lying or attempting to present yourself as having some official affiliation with those ...
5
While I am not a lawyer, if you purchase a physical CD (bit of a rarity these days, I know) and look at the booklet which has the liner notes, you should see copyright notices for each song. If lyrics have been provided, the notice will be at the end of each set of lyrics. (KISS used to copyright theirs under an entity called "Opporknockity Tunes," which ...
5
Yes. The lyrics are covered by copyright and you need permission to reproduce them. I think at least some of the "lyrics search engines" on the web pay their dues to the copyright holders (Wikipedia says: Lyrics licenses could be obtained in North America through one of the two aggregators; Gracenote Inc. and LyricFind.)
Translations are also covered by ...
5
Usual disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. Please do not construe this as legal advice. Etc.
But my understanding from my research and past experience is this. Oh, another disclaimer: I'm an American so my experience is with U.S. copyright law, but I think most of this is pretty much the same in all countries because copyright is controlled by a couple of big ...
5
Short answer: No. You are supposed to register only the "best edition" with the copyright office. They have a long list of criteria for what constitutes the best edition, but it's things like a hard cover takes precedence over a paperback. See http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ07b.pdf
4
What are the legal issues when submitting work to publishers?
Your work must be your work. Don't submit anything that someone else has written, not even if you just copied a few sentences. Even if you changed them. There are companies out there that can run automated checks on your work to see if they can find something in it that even remotely looks ...
4
In order for backups to really work, you need multiple factors in place:
Automation: If you forget to put a document or a document's version on a USB or email it to yourself, it is effectively not backed up. Dropbox is your best bet for this, with Mozy a close second.
Off-Site: Unless you have a system to regularly store copies in one of those ...
4
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. This is a complicated area of law, but I'll give you the 30,000 foot view to get you started.
By default (at least, under U.S. law), each co-author owns an equal interest in the work's copyright. This is irrespective of how much (or how little) each co-author contributed to the work. So, absent of any agreement, if there are ...
4
Citing from your link:
Share Alike — If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one.
Yes, you have to release it under Creative Commons.
Best places are the beginning and the end of the book. I would split it. I.e. mentioning at the beginning the license and ...
4
Option A: "Welcome Monsieur Debarge to your cabin on the Caspian Rapide, the luxury train service that will take you on a journey from London through to Istanbul," the guard said as the famous Belgian detective came aboard.
Option B: "Murder!" Lady Glintington cried, aghast. "On the Orient Express? I believed that this was one of the safest train services ...
4
In principle, the author is copyright holder of a work, but this principle is often deviated from. When the work is commissioned by another party, some countries automatically transfer copyright, some leave it with the author. Some countries do not even allow copyright to be transfered voluntarily. International treaties such as the Berne Convention and the ...
4
I'm not a lawyer. Any questions about specific rights, etc. should be directed to someone knowledgeable about the rules in your jurisdiction.
That being said, there are a number of things that could complicate this question. For example, you say 'your children' and refer to your 'ex-husband'. Is he the father? If so, do the custody arrangements allow him ...
4
I believe the most relevant law is the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/contents
Terms are defined in Part I, Chapter 2. Section 17 (2) defines infringement by copying for literary works:
Copying in relation to a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work means reproducing the work in any material ...
4
DISCLAIMER: I am not a legal professional. The advice provided in this answer is not exhaustive and should not be considered complete.
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