Question by Hi I’m Barry Scott: Copyright law and licenses, some links for my doubts?
hi there. my name is dave, and i am trying to get in to the website development business.
there is me and a friend, between us we know all the code and design, but we have a few legal doubts. as this is internet we are talking about, i am looking for some information on international law, or what tends to be the law in most places.
you dont need to go in to detail explaining or anything, just a couple simple links to the correct articles would be great.
my doubts are:
- to what extent can things be considered fair use under copyright law? text qutations, short video clips, etc… (i know a bit about DMCAs and that false ones can be contested and what not, but im looking more for what constitutes a violation of the DMCA.)
- what is the difference between public domain and open source? can open source things always be used for comercial use just like public domain can, or do they tend to have different licenses for each software/product etc… (as far as using it to create something, like using GIMP to make a picture, and then sell or market said picture.
- are there any not well known laws on the whole copyright thing that i should know of? (things that if i did them without knowing i could get in serious trouble) .. nothing obvious, i know the general things.
thanks for any help.
Best answer:
Answer by timothy b
The most important thing to know as an artist is, if you’re in the USA, you cannot sue anyone for copyright infringement unless you’ve registered your work with the US Copyright Office (link below). You also cannot recover legal fees or punitive damages with unregistered work. Copyright infringement carries a potential penalty of $ 150,000 per incident… so it’s imperative to understand copyright (and in some cases trademark) law before using. ( Read about them here. )
http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html#automatic
The good news is, you do not have to register each image individually. You can register hundreds or thousands of images at once for one fee (or for a smaller fee if registration is done by online upload.) ( Read about them here.)
http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-register.html#multiple
I hope this can help you.
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