Copyright Aid

Hi Timothy, There are unlikely to be any intellectual property implications in doing this. The appearance of the bag will not be subject to copyright, and it is unlikely to be a registered design. A patent applying to the function of the bag is also highly unlikely. That just leaves trade marks. If ...

Hi Steve, Your wife is right to be cautious, especially as she is just starting out on this venture, and it may be that it will take a few months or even years before a copyright infringement claim might arise and cause headaches. To put it simply, any image whether, it's an artwork or a photograph,...

Hi mg1983,

I'm not sure why you thought this question had a copyright angle to it, but, hey, we like to be helpful here.

Here's a website which can answer your question: trading standards.

Hi again Olga, Based on what you have said about others also using the words of the film title for different purposes, and the fact that you mentioned previously that the words are pretty commonplace, I really don't think you have anything to worry about. While the name of the film may be well-known...

Hi Olga, From a copyright point of view that would be OK. Titles of books, films etc usually don't attract copyright in their own right because they are too short, and in the case you mention, being a common phrase means that the title would lack originality, which is a key ingredient for copyright ...

Hi pjtporter, If the original work you (or your client) want to copy is still in copyright, then doing this without permission would be infringement. As a rule of thumb, if the original artist is still alive or died less than 70 years ago, his/her work will still be protected by copyright. You, as t...

Hi Helen, Glad to hear you are still chipping away at this. It's a shame Mr Semken wasn't able to give you the necessary permission. As for Random House, you could try going in via this page on their website as that should put you in touch with the staff who handle rights and licensing. You will nee...

Hi Fedeg23, As you are probably aware there are two separate intellectual property rights involved here: copyright and trade marks. I think we can dismiss trade marks in this instance as you do not propose, as far as I can see, to use the logos in a way which could be interpreted as advertising or p...

Hi Mr Punch, It's really hard to give you any definitive guidelines on this, as very often the risk you face of being sued has more to do with the attitude of the creator of the other work, rather than any legal background. For example if you wanted to closely follow the plot and/or characters of a ...

Hi WebExaminer, Hypothetical questions are valid! As you say, after someone has died it becomes a matter of judgement whether their heirs would ever wish to enforce copyright even if they were aware that it existed. On balance I think it is highly unlikely in the case of postings on forum unless the...

Hi WebExaminer, I'm glad you find my earlier reply useful. The Great War Forum Admin you quoted has got it spot on. Don't worry if you don't know a poster's real name, and can only refer to a pretty bizarre username. That is all the law requires you to do, and indeed the law on copyright has always ...

Hi WebExaminer, As far as the law is concerned, there's no difference between something posted on a web forum and something published in, for instance, a book. Provided that the text is the author's own work and rises above the threshold of banality, then it will attract copyright protection and tha...

Hi s19320, All the Scratch materials including the step-by-step instructions would appear to be covered by the Creative Commons ShareAlike 2.0 license , which I assume you have read. This means that you can copy and re-use the materials and share your developed version freely under a similar Creativ...

Hi Matt, You don't need to be concerned about the UK copyright. Provided a work has been fixed in a permanent medium, copyright automatically exists. So even the original manuscript prior to printing would have established the UK copyright. That fact that there is a copy in the British Library tends...

Hi Matt, The person who has re-published your relative's work is no doubt relying on American copyright law when it comes to determining if the original work is still in copyright. The system in the USA changed in 1976 from one where a work had to be registered to gain copyright protection, to the s...