In an e-book, can you include a Youtube link to the song that was playing at the

Discussion in 'Electronic Publishing' started by Lotgrinder, Mar 29, 2013.

  1. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Sorry, no, these are not correct.

    That content is copyrighted by the author, whether or not it has a notice, and whether or not the author even knows that he holds the copyright. Since nineteen-seventy-something-or-other, copyright applies whether or not it is asserted or filed. Filing has an impact on the nature of damages that you can recover, but copyright exists in either case.

    It's also possible that the blog or forum platform owner claims either limited or complete copyright as part of the terms of service, but in any case, someone owns the copyright.

    Deleting copyrighted content would not violate copyright--copyright doesn't require anyone to publish content; it restricts whether someone is allowed to publish the content. _Editing_ copyrighted content could be a copyright issue, though I would bet that most terms of service would assert fairly broad rights in this area.

    You can be sued for copyright violation even if you don't make a penny from the use of copyrighted material, and even if the person that you're taking content from wouldn't make a penny.
     
  2. Teodor Pravický

    Teodor Pravický New Member

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    I would steal just from one band or musician, making sure that it gets into newspapers when they try to make something out of it, then you can too ;) While unfortunately better PR won't make your book sale so much - that you could afford pay to the musician, so I personally won't do it.

    I will contact some amateurish bands for similar reason, its better for them to get noticed and they will let me use it for free ;)
     
  3. Xatron

    Xatron New Member

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    I am not sure about how it works in the US or UK, but in my country unless you register your work anyone can claim the rights to it before you and should that happen it requires a long and arduous series of legal conflicts to take them back. Also i have a music producer relative in the US who was involved in a situation where the label he works for was being sued by a composer because of a similar situation, so including the facts i know about copyright from what i have read on the website of the Library of Congress i figured it works more or less the same. If you are sure this works differently then i apologize, but i know for sure that unless the terms of service or another agreement specifies that the blog content is copyrighted under the blogger's name or the blogger posts a notice of copyright along with the content, the situation is at least shady should one need to go to court to claim those rights.
     
  4. evelon

    evelon Active Member

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    I don't know which country you are from, so I can't speculate on what you understand to be the law regarding copyright there, but I suggest you Google The Berne Convention, www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p08_berne_convention which is an international agreement protecting copyright.

    You don't understand and cannot be sure of the situation regarding blogs. Content on blogs belong to the author/artist/songwriter/musician. There may be some sites that ask you sign away your rights if you contribute to a blog, but they would have to make that very clear and understandable.

    It's by far safer to assume that if you didn't give birth to it/write it/paint it/ produce it/sing it/etc.etc. that it isn't yours and you don't under any circumstance, other than direct and specific agreement from the creator of the piece, have the right to do anything with it other than read, listen or watch it.

    It is safer to stipulate ownership and copyright of whatever work you post on line, but that doesn't mean, if you don't see such stipulation, that you can assume you can use it as you please.

    The only thing you need to know and remember about copyright infringement is:

    1) if it isn't yours - don't use it without permission
    2) the onus is not on the originator to protect the copyright. It may be sensible, but it isn't a condition of ownership. If someone doesn't protect his property with a burglar alarm it doesn't give you the right to walk in and take what you want.
    3) Using someone else's work without their express and specific permission is no different than any other form of theft. It's stealing.
     

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