Questions tagged [copyright]
The legal framework protecting artists, authors and other content-originators. Copyright allows owners to prevent others reproducing their work without permission (though most jurisdictions allows some limited exceptions in specific circumstances for some types of content.)
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Does the 1928 version of Mickey Mouse in Steamboat Willie lack gloves and shoes?
According to CNN's article, "An early version of Disney’s Mickey Mouse will enter the public domain on January 1",
There are differences between the 1928 Mickey and the company’s mascot ...
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Is Antigua exempt from U.S. copyright?
In “how to legally steal” by shounic on YouTube, it's claimed that Antigua was awarded by the WTO a suspension of obligation to United States copyright as a remedy for the U.S.' treatment of online ...
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Was the music used in the "You wouldn't steal a car" advertisements pirated?
I was browsing Reddit and I saw this post that garnered 51 thousand votes claiming that the music used in the "You wouldn't steal a car" advertisements was, itself, stolen.
According to the ...
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Did Stevenson assert his moral right?
I have here a copy of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, republished in 2010 by Harper Press, an imprint of HarperCollins's. On the copyright page is this text, with ...
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Do longer copyright terms encourage people to create more? [closed]
In the Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) of 1998 (commonly known, derisively, as the "Mickey Mouse Protection Act"), US congress obliged to the Walt Disney Company's lobbying and signed a law that ...
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Did Trump's inauguration cake copy the design of Obama's 2013 inauguration cake?
We have now learned that Trump continued to offer up
Apprentice-season-four-quality optics at the “Salute to Our Troops”
inaugural ball, where he served guests a spectacular nine-tiered cake
made ...
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Is visiting a banned torrent site punishable by 3 years jail in India?
Recently, it has been all over the news in India that if anyone visits a banned torrent site, they may get jailed for 3 years.
Here is an example:
The Indian government, with the help of internet ...
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Are piracy rates for PC games often 85-90 percent in 2016?
In an article on Ars Technica about Jonathan Blow's pricing strategy for his new game The Witness, he was cited as saying the following (emphasis mine):
"There's this rhetoric that piracy is free ...
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Did Spam sue a 'popular email service' in the early days of the internet?
I seem to clearly remember hearing many years ago that Spam () sued Microsoft (or AOL, or another popular email service at the time) for using the word 'spam' to refer to junk email. They said it was ...
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Is downloading copyrighted material legal in Switzerland?
In Switzerland, is it legal to download copyrighted material without permission?
In Switzerland you'll get all kinds of answers to the question "Is it Legal?". The same goes of course for the ...
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Were thousands of people executed by "Breaking On the Wheel" for copying fabrics in pre-revolution France?
An article by Rick Falkvinge best categorized as political opinion / commentary on copyright enforcement claims that:
A few centuries ago, the penalty for unauthorized copying was
breaking on the ...
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Are 1 in 5 pieces of software in the US unlicensed?
This BSA form claims that
1 in 5 pieces of software in the US are unlicensed.
How true is it?
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Does the US army use unlicensed copies of Windows 7?
I saw this claim at TorrentFreak:
However, a signal soldier serving in Qatar informs TorrentFreak that this incident may not be as unique as it sounds. According to the soldier, who we will name ...
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Does illegal downloading of music significantly damage sales? [duplicate]
Obviously the music industry has gone to great lengths to try and ingrain the message that illegal downloads of music have significantly damaged their bottom line, but is there any irrefutable ...
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Has copyright piracy halved in New Zealand since their "three strikes" rule?
According to the BBC article US piracy crackdown delayed until 2013, dated November 29, 2012:
New Zealand claims that piracy has halved since it introduced a "three strikes" rule.
After a little ...
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Do corporations own human DNA sequences?
I came across the claim that Human DNA sequences are now owned by corporations:
FACT: HUMAN DNA SEQUENCES ARE NOW OWNED BY CORPORATIONS
Is this true?
If so, what does this mean?
(I realise ...
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Do record companies use a system that kept 99.995% of artists without any form of regular income?
This quote from TorrentFreak:
Under the “sign-a-record-deal-or-remain-poor system”, 99% of artists
didn’t get record deals with the abusive record industry – and out of
those who did, 99.5% ...
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Did Steve Jobs say "We've always been shameless about stealing great ideas."?
Did Steve Jobs make following statement:
"We've always been shameless about stealing great ideas"
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Did Apple steal trademarks like iPad, iOS and iPhone from other companies?
I found the following post on Google+:
So it Turns Out LG Released a Linux Based Tablet Called iPad 9 Years Ago
Apparently iPad was first introduced by South Korean hardware
manufacturer LG ...
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Did Rick Astley receive only $12 in royalties for "Never Gonna Give You Up' from YouTube?
I found this claim originally in Wikipedia, quoted from the Register.
The return to the artists is pitiful; ironic 80s icon Rick Astley's Never Going To Give You Up was played 39 million times on ...
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Can acts of IP piracy be more beneficial than harmful?
There are several claims that piracy of Intellectual Property (IP) can help sales more than it hurts them.
For example, Edmund McMillan of Team Meat states in an interview at IGN:
McMillen ...
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Does every act of piracy impact revenue by the current content price?
Many copyright owners claim that every time someone pirates content (e.g. a song, a film, software) that they have lost money.
Some make a stronger claim: that every pirated download is hurting their ...
user6327
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Was Mozart a music pirate?
A comment on a Philosophy SE Question by MGZero:
You'll probably find this interesting. Mozart created the first
illegal copy of Misere, which was heavily guarded by the Vatican. How
did he do ...
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Are individual watermarks widely used to fight piracy?
I have heard on some occasions that programs for digital media, such as Adobe Photoshop, embed hidden watermarks in the pictures that make it possible to spot a pirated copy and trace it to the person ...
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Is DRM effective?
Reddit is all abuzz about DRM, piracy and all related topics. I don't really know much about the details in the technology here, but people were throwing around statements like these (all pulled from ...
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Is the music industry losing significant money because of piracy?
Is the music industry, and perhaps the entertainment industry, being ruined by piracy (or otherwise losing a substantial amount of money?)
For example, the record label EMI has blamed piracy for the ...
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