How many seconds can I use as intro a song without copyright notice? I have heard 15 and under.
I think you have mis-read the answers by Cliff Gilley and Jonathan Tobin. That are not saying that you are not allowed to use the clip or the quote. They are saying that when it is brought into court, the judge has to look at all of the factors to come to a fair decision about whether your use is ripping off the song writer.The fair decision can't be based on some exact metric like "22 seconds of a song, no more!". Songs come in different lengths and there are many other factors that make a fixed time unit meaningless.What you seem to want is a guarantee on your legal issue. I hope you are aware that the only person that can make such assurances is your paid lawyer. The law actually prohibits the general public from offer specific advice on what to do. We can broadly comment, but not recommend to you a course of action.In my opinion as a non-lawyer, you're screwed. The project you are working on is not a parody, a comment on the original song, and not an academic/educational project. A "promotional video" falls squarely in the definition of "commercial use" since that term includes advertising (even for a nonpartisan grassroot nonprofit project; it's still advertising). So the bigger test for this use, "the purpose and character of your use", is not ranking highly before we even get to "the amount and substantiality of the portion taken".And on "amount and substantiality of the portion taken", the main chorus of the song is pretty substantial. This is probably why using song samples ("sampling") was ruled a copyright infringement decades ago, forcing NWA to fork over a huge penalty for using samples in their songs from other song's choruses.There are also no good workarounds. A clip of your friend performing it is twice as much copyright infringement, not a workaround. The source of the music/lyrics you add to your video are not important, the case will only rely on whether or not the copyrighted material is present.But my opinion is no guarantee that you would lose; or more importantly, that the copyright holder would even bother to sue you in the first place.Are you aware that the only likely penalty is that you have to stop playing the video? If it goes to court, there might be other penalties, like court fees and so on, but the likelihood of this going to court without a warning from their lawyer first is something you should consider.
How do people who torrent movies, TV shows and other copyrighted materials get caught?
The government is usually not the one who will catch you. Private entities are. I deal with these cases nearly every day, so this answer is based on my own experience in those cases filed in Florida. This is a general answer and not related to any particular case, and the process is the same no matter who the Plaintiff is or who the Plaintiff's attorney is.In most of the cases that are filed in the United States today, the cases start after a team of "investigators," located in Germany and using their own tweaked torrent clients, monitor the torrents to look for IP addresses. Once these "investigators" identify the IP addresses, they provide them to the Plaintiffs (film companies or companies who have bought the copyrights) and their attorneys along with a "Hit Date," which is a time/date that the IP address was detected in the torrent stream of a particular hash. Then the investigator will determine which jurisdiction the IP address is located in by using a web service to approximate the geographic location of the IP address. Armed with nothing more than an IP address and an approximated jurisdiction, the Plaintiff's attorneys will then file a federal lawsuit against "John Doe" or "John Doe Internet Subscriber at xxx.xxx.xx.xxx [IP address]," claiming copyright infringement via BitTorrent downloading, in the court over the geographic location of the IP address.Normally in federal lawsuits a party cannot conduct discovery until after having a mandatory conference with the other side. However, here, because the other side is anonymous, the Plaintiff asks the Court to send a subpoena to John Doe's ISP to determine the identity of the account holder. The Court usually allows that, and the Plaintiff sends the subpoena to the ISP. Although the ISP will usually warn the account holder what's happening, there is often little that can be done (nowadays in most situations, at least, though there are a few exceptions) to successfully quash the subpoena, so the ISP ends up sending the contact information (name and address) to the attorney.Then the attorney is armed with the identity of the account holder. This is not necessary the person who downloaded the content, but it's the person who the ISP identified as being associated with the IP address that the German "investigator" detected. The Plaintiff's attorney makes a choice of what to do, which, many times is to name that person as a Defendant in the lawsuit, and litigation ensues.
How to tell which songs don't have copyright to use in a montage?
It is safe to assume that any recorded music you might wish to use today is protected by copyright, and requires a license to use in a video. Copyright in the U.S. lasts for the creator's lifetime, plus 70 years. For music recordings, which are generally owned by corporations, the copyright lasts for 95 years from the first publication of the recording, or 120 years from its creation, whichever comes first. That means that anything recorded after 1916 is still under copyright, and that includes just about all recordings because very few recordings older than that exist. In practice, for various historical reasons, the actual cutoff date is 1923. Anything recorded before 1923 is in the public domain now, but anything recorded after it is protected by copyright, and you need a license to use it. All you have to do is check the publication date of the recording, and add 95 years, and that's when the copyright will expire. Until then, you need permission. If you are looking for background music, you can consider royalty-free music (google for it). Royalty-free music requires a license, too, but you can buy a license for just a few dollars, and it's a very broad license that lets you do just about anything with the music. Royalty-free music is written by composers specifically for use as background music. It's called royalty-free because you only pay a one-time license fee, but you don't have to pay royalties each time you use it (for other types of music, you may have to pay money for each use of the music). A lot of sites on the Web sell royalty-free music for immediate download. A few sites even give away this kind of music for free, although you tend to get what you pay for.
I want to name my business but am scared of Copyright Infringement?
I am aware of a clothing business called Evans, but I want to name my business Evans. Can anyone tell me if the name is Copyrighted? Perhaps I could name my business Evans Enterprise (Or something similar to avoid infringement) Any tips?
How can we post game walkthroughs without getting copyright infringement problems?
Rule #1 - Don't piss off the copyright/trademark holders.Realize and understand that what you're posting may technically be violations of the copyrights and trademarks of the given video game publisher or creator, and respect that.While it's true that most walkthroughs likely meet the standards of "fair use" under US copyright law, that doesn't mean that YouTube, Twitch, or others won't pull your video immediately upon receiving a DMCA takedown notice from any rights-holder who's property you use in your video. It's then up to you to prove that your use is not infringing - something that can be time-consuming and (if you're brought to court) costly.The reality is that it's unlikely that you're going to be brought into court for creating video game walkthroughs. And many video game companies don't act against them, because it's free publicity and attention. But some do, and those are the ones who issue DMCA takedown notices, or who have worked ahead of time with YouTube or other sites to proactively monitor for infringing works.The only 100% guaranteed, iron-clad way to ensure that you can create such videos and have them remain online indefinitely would be to obtain the right to do so from the rights-holders or licensees of the game.
Is making a t-shirt for personal use that uses a copyrighted image legal?
As many others have already made clear, of course this would be illegal. You don’t own the rights to the band’s logo and imagery, so you can’t distribute them without their permission.Don’t even kid yourself with the “personal use” premise. It’s not. You’d have to submit that design to a t-shirt vendor and ask them to reproduce it; that’s distribution. And if you ever wear it in public, that’s distribution, too (which you don’t have the legal right to do). And even if you have your own t-shirt making equipment in your home and you’ll never wear it out in public, there’s still no exception in copyright law for personal use (it’s just that nobody will see or know about the infringement).But why not ASK the band’s promoter? Seriously, if you’re wanting t-shirts, surely you’re not the only one. You could identify a specific logo, image, or album cover you want to use and ask permission to make a t-shirt for yourself with that on it. And if they grant that permission, you don’t have to worry about copyright or trademark infringement.Who knows? It could turn out that they’ve wanted all along to have t-shirt merchandise made and they just didn’t have someone with the time or skills to coordinate getting that done. Perhaps they’ll appreciate the interest and partner with you to produce them. Or maybe they’ve already got shirts in the works. Or maybe they’ll say they have no plans to produce any, but you’re welcome to make one.Every which way I can think of, your situation is enhanced by seeking permission.
Was i supposed to be read my rights?
i got pulled over by an off duty police officer in his own personal vehicle. he called another police that was on duty to the scene. he then began to search my vehicle and found 4 half burnt marijuana cigarettes. at that time the on duty police placed the handcuffs on me and the off duty cop said hes just being detained. then i was placed in the car without a seatbelt. the cop was on the way to the jail and slammed on the brakes and i hit the cage and plexiglass. Whats up with this??
How exactly does hacking work in Call of Duty?
Most of the time the person " hacking" is not actually hacking all they've done is downloaded someone else's program and run it when CoD launches, And depending on the program it will ussualy have a wide range of diferent modes from basic aimbot/wallhack to more advanced godmode,flying,constant ac 130s & care package chopper gunners. Whilst in preventing them there is not much anyone can do besides the company itself. Reporting probably helps if enough people do it. My friend was palying CoD4 about 1 year ago and was running fraps to record this guy who was hacking and we all assumed he had just downloaded someone else's program like catalysthacks or whatever, but about 10 minutes later after my friend telling the guy he was being recorded my friends computer got shutdown randomly and he could not get back on for about 2 weeks. Even without people "hacking" there will still be people using modded controllers which are pretty much 100% undetectable so the chance of ever getting rid of hackers/modders is very slim. I guess if you were hosting your own game and someone was hacking you could boot them offline, this all depends on what console you use whether it be pc,xbox 360, WII or PS3.