Copyright Aid

Hi SillyPooPooFace (possibly one of the more original member names we have on here) As you correctly identify, the soundwave image has no copyright protection, either in respect of the song or in itself as a simple image. A title of a track or song is unlikely to be registered as a trade mark and so...

Hi Fatty, I think you have rather missed the OP's original point. The Pixsy claim was for the Flickr image - see the third paragraph of his first posting. Hence all the stuff about what is due to the other photographer (ie not the one responsible for the Flickr image) is irrelevant since Pixsy is no...

Hi Mubuer, The main sort of misrepresentation would be that the person filing the DMCA notice was not the actual owner of the copyright. A would not misrepresent the facts just because it was not obvious that something was fair use. The balancing act which the court has to go through in order to dec...

Hi Mubuer, The important thing to note is that as Youtube is a US company their general terms and conditions originally specified that their site will be governed by US law (specifically the laws of the State of California) but since 2007 they have adopted a policy of 'localisation' in which users i...

Hi again am, Yes, what you outline sounds fine. Certainly discussing the items or referring to them shouldn't be an issue. The only aspect in which copyright might impinge on what you want to do is how you render things like the covers of comics or DVDs etc. Say for instance you wish to include the ...

Hi Mr Punch, As I indicated in my first reply there's really very little to do with copyright in these examples and I don't want to get sidetracked into talking about defamation law. But as you indicate, big companies like McDonalds or Disney, employ teams of lawyers to protect both their intellectu...

Hi MrPunch It's worth reminding ourselves exactly what rights copyright bestows on a copyright owner. The main ones are listed below. You can see the complete list as set out in UK law here . The right of reproduction aka copying. The right of distribution is the right to authorize the making availa...

Hi Booop, My opinion isn't really relevant here. Yes, there is a certain amount of similarity in the graphic styles, but I suspect that if you did a bit of googling you would probably find images by other artists which incorporated many of the same elements. Certainly the deep orange and black colou...

Hi adventuremaster, I am not entirely clear if your animation features real objects and uses something like stop-motion to create the action, or whether you are entirely drawing the scenes, cartoon-style, or possibly a mixture of both. If you are drawing the scenes, try to make the background object...

Hi riebennacht, I would guess that Penguin acquired the copyright when they commissioned the engraving, but even if this was not the case and Diana Bloomfield retained ownership of the copyright, Penguin will probably have insisted on having an exclusive licence to use the engraving and so I suggest...

Hi again Satele, Yes, I'm sorry, I should have been more specific in my previous reply. In the letter, I suggest that you need to briefly set out the background to the claim, in such a way that a third party would understand the situation. In particular you could refer to the email in which you gave...

Hi Satele, The extensive use of your images without permission is infringement and you are entitled to compensation in the form of damages. I suspect that the fact that you allowed them to link to your blog has been taken by them to amount to permission for the wider use. However since it appears yo...

Hi aggy_b, A lot depends on the context in which the picture is needed. If it is in connected with criticism of either the photograph itself or another copyright work with which the photograph is closely linked (say a still from a film where the oeuvre of a film director was being examined) then tha...

Hi kismet, Yes, both of those examples would be perfectly legal. As you mention the exhaustion of rights covers any copyright issues, and even if the characters depicted on the fabric were registered as trade marks, you would not infringe the trade mark by re-fashioning the fabric into something els...

Hi Eddie, When you say there may not be an heir, do you mean that there was no will, or that there were absolutely no surviving relatives? If the author died intestate then there are rules for how the estate would be passed on. These rules vary slightly depending on where in the UK the author died, ...