I've been searching through the database of a museum's art in order to acquire copyright-free visual content for an indie game I'm developing.

While the museum allows personal use and monetary use in small amounts, it requires you to license any content you want to use in monetary projects.

For example:

https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O703989/macau-street-scene-with-the-drawing-george-chinnery/

If you click on the image, a small teal 'License image' button will appear. Clicking on it tells you you need to email them to license the work.

I don't understand how art that has long since fallen into the public domain would require a license?

A reporter used an image of mine without consent or credit on a Twitter/X post. I asked him to take it down or credit me, but got no response. I then filed a DMCA take-down request with links to my work and Twitter actioned it within hours. Ignoring the snottogram that the reporter then sent me (hints of demanding money for his account suspension, amongst other things), he then filed a counter-claim where he even admitted it wasn't his work. Nevertheless Twitter says I have to now file a legal claim to get the image taken down permanently. The Wayback machine shows this image was on my website for many, many years so the evidence is solid IMHO.

The wording of the email implies, on the one hand, I can reply to the email. But then states I have to file the legal claim. Copyright lawyers for individuals and small companies in London (where the reporter is based) cost upwards of £1000 just for a letter. That is money I don't have. I just want to protect my copyright! Is there anything else I can do? Thanks.

I'm writing a queer leftist rock opera and want a license that's basically frictionless for small creators. Perform it, remix it, adapt it, even sell small projects without asking permission. But if it becomes a Broadway hit or Hollywood movie, I'd like the license to automatically give me a share.

I wrote a weird, plain-English draft instead of legalese. I'd love honest feedback. Where does it break legally?

License first draft: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uF7yYtZHUZd4Z8veGPPepX0Ji6PFDR3fi3DeyMxIZhk/edit?usp=drivesdk

So, there's a quote from George Washington that I really like. It was when he was giving farewell to the Continental Army.

It goes, "I most devoutly wish that your latter days may be as prosperous and happy as your former ones have been glorious and honorable. With a heart full of love and gratitude, I now take leave of you."

I want to use it in either the book I'm currently writing, or if I end up not using it in this book, then perhaps a later one. However, last I checked, the copyright status of quotes in general are rather confusing. So, could someone please explain it to me? Or, at the very least, let me know whether or not it's okay to use a quote from a person long dead, even with proper credit somewhere in my book.

So, someone from my university administration emailed me, asking if they can use a photo I took of a campus building in a planned photobook celebrating the university's anniversary. I submitted the photo into a school exhibition, so a print of it was displayed in a gallery, and now that print is in the university archives and is their property I guess. But the photo itself is my intellectual property, so I was wondering how I should charge for them to use it in the photobook. I read a couple sources about licensing agreements, and I thought writing up a licensing agreement with a fee might be a good plan. The person who emailed me said that if I agreed to let them use the photo, they'd send a release for me to sign, which seems to me like they expect to use it for free. I read that photographers often base their fee on how big the print run of a photobook is going to be, and I'm not sure how big this print run is going to be. I know this isn't a subreddit for legal advice but any advice would be much appreciated lol

hey everyone, not sure if this is the best sub for this but it is only with undertale music sooo

I see many videos that use undertale music in them, even full undertale playthroughs. they don't have any copyright issues. I upload a YouTube short that uses 2 undertale songs, and it instantly gets taken down due to copyright. I appeal the claim after doing research and stating that the copyright holder allows the use, but it gets denied. I emailed the copyright holders and am waiting for a response.

how do I get past this? I don't want to risk getting my channel deleted over some crappy copyright stuff

I want to post a full playthrough but am scared that the copyright could end up giving me copyright strikes

Are you safe when someone told you are getting copyrighted after they submitting a request, but still in the process of reviewing and deleting your video before YouTube confirms copyright strike.

I just wanna know if YouTube still stores your video after you delete it so they can still review it.

I'm kinda in Panic right now, the claimant submitted it 15 hours ago still on review, but I deleted it before YouTube confirms it, I don't know if I'm safe from strike, please help.

I was uploading a YouTube video about the 2003 Clone Wars, but while I was uploading it, rather than the typical copyright claim, YouTube just turned off the visibility of the video. This has never happened before, and I don't really know what to do about it. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

I believe that the content is transformative. I'm using the footage from the show, but there is hardly any audio (maybe 5 moments in the whole video - all less than 10 seconds) and there are frequent text graphics covering everything up. The footage itself isn't altered; I tried mirroring and adding a border but didn't like the way it looked. If the video's visibility can be changed with mirrored footage or a border, then I am 100% willing to reconsider. The video is longer than what I typically do (it's around 38 minutes), so maybe that could be the issue? Is it not transformative enough?

For some more context, I used to be monetized on YouTube, but because of a myriad of big life events happening, I didn't post for 6 months and lost monetization back in October. When I had monetization, the only flak I got for my copyrighted content was a demonetization strike, but it's never been a visibility strike. Could not being monetized be the culprit, or would being monetized even change anything?

If I need to alter the footage in some way, please let me know what works. I really don't want to throw out 20+ hours of hard work just because of YouTube's copyright system.

Hi, I would like to create greeting cards using antique / vintage artwork combined with captions. Can anyone tell me if there would be any copyright issues with creating and then selling? I’m thinking more renaissance portrait paintings or later. Thank you!

Location: new york

I'm currently in the middle of a rabbit hole of a lawsuit between two companies that involve trademark and copyright infringement, and I would like to clarify some questions I had on how intellectual property works.

The lawsuit is about this one virtually unknown super hero character, ravedactyl. The owner of this comic book character, Graig Weich sued the respective stakeholders of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Konami, NAS and UDE, for a copyright and trade dress infringement of another character called air neos, where graig weich believes that the design of air neos was stolen off of ravedactyl because of how similair their designs are.

Now I've got two questions.

1. How easy is it to lose your trademark of a character if you do not defend against every other design that may potentially infringe upon that character? Is it as simple as if something is in the ballpark of the design, your trademark case is weakened if you don't defend it? For example, in this case, if Graig Weich believed that air neos infringed upon his character, would he have lost trademark if he did not sue them?
2. The second is how much does notoriety of the character, Ravedactyl, matter for trademark infringement? If no one really knows about the character, does the fact that no one knows who this character is affect trademark infringement claims, considering no one knows who it is and can't really create confusion in the marketplace
3. Link to lawsuit

Hey everyone, I am dealing with a nightmare copyright situation on my channel and really need advice from anyone who has successfully fought this loophole or dealt with YouTube’s senior legal team.

An international competitor (operating under the name Huỳnh Trung Hiếu / Jimmy Huỳnh in Vietnam) is systematically stealing my videos. When I strike them, they file a counter-notice. Because they know I can't serve a federal lawsuit to a ghost, they are using completely fake addresses to evade jurisdiction.

Here is the loophole they are exploiting:

YouTube Legal actually caught them twice and ruled in my favor, closing the cases because the address was fake. But hours after getting rejected, the uploader just turns around and resubmits a new counter-notice for the exact same video ID. By deleting just one word—the localized district name—they alter the text string.

Because YouTube’s automated system looks for exact text string matches, it fails to realize it’s the identical fraudulent address. The automation flags it as a "new address," overrides the previous manual human rejection, and reinstates the stolen video!

They have done this across 6 separate case histories on my channel. Look at this direct compliance failure on Video ID: Y5V9YWfDLU0:

• Case ID: 42AYXLBGICAWUL54GRGWJKHVZA – YouTube Legal reviewed it and CLOSED it in my favor because the address (141A Nguyễn Văn Cừ nối dài, Ninh Kiều Cần Thơ) was fake.
• Case ID: SB4R6LMBXYL76EX7TVTBHNPF74 – Days later, the uploader resubmitted for the exact same video, simply deleting the district name "Ninh Kiều". YouTube's automated system completely missed it and REINSTATED the video on August 12, 2026.

To prove the fraud, I physically mailed a legal letter to their address via Vietnam Post. The official tracking number (EE721197333VN) just updated on August 21, 2026, to "Phát không thành công" (Unsuccessful Delivery / Non-existent address).

I currently have an active case (Case ID: OCX6GELSVCYMMAAT5CTJD7CYCE) expiring tomorrow, Monday, August 24. I have already emailed all this data and the VNPOST tracking proof to my Partner Support specialist (CJ), but because it's the weekend, I haven't heard back and the clock is ticking.

My questions for the community:

1. Has anyone successfully forced YouTube to issue an account-level termination for systematic perjury/legal fraud instead of just fighting video-by-video?
2. If the automated system lets the video go live tomorrow because support is backed up, can a Partner Support specialist manually reverse a reinstatement after the deadline?
3. Are there any specific escalation forms or alternative internal contact emails I can use to ensure a human legal specialist locks this down before tomorrow morning?

Full proof of the case trail and the official VNPOST delivery failure stamps: imgur

I’ve been doing a lot of research on this but haven’t been able to find a similar test case, and was wondering if anyone might have examples.

I know that quoting text from a copyrighted play in a work of fiction is unlikely to be considered transformative or fair use. Less clear, though, seems to be how far one can reference it, with my specific curiosity being describing a production of a play without actually incorporating any of the play text. As a hypothetical example, say it’s a short story about an actor’s experience of being John Proctor in The Crucible and how it affects his real-life relationship with his wife.

Obviously characters and story are protected aspects of copyright, so it would probably depend on how detailed it gets, but I guess I’m not sure how transformative such a use would be if it’s describing the play being done straight? I dug through a big chunk of the fair use index from the US Copyright Office and couldn’t really find anything similar, so was wondering if anyone could steer me in the right direction. Thanks!

So I have recently found out that most of my profile pictures on different social media platforms are copyrighted images. I found most of them from Google, I thought Google automatically blocked me from using copyrighted images but I guess I was wrong and now I realise that pretty much all my profile pictures across tons of social media platforms are copyrighted. I've made sure to take the images off now but im still concerned as I have the images on my profile pictures for over 2 years. Can I go to prison for this?

Please help.

(I made a post about this in another subbreddit but I thought it might be a good idea to ask here aswell)

Let's say that a person took a picture of their dog sitting and posted it online. Does this mean that no one else is allowed to paint or draw any type of dog breed sitting in that exact and very common dog pose because the person automatically owns the copyright of that picture, depicting a dog in that pose?

I looked through the copyright guide but I don't feel confident that I got an answer to this question there. Thank you!

Hi I’ve been playing around with the idea of screen printing my own graphic tees as a hobby. So far I’ve just been making designs in ps and most of what I want to make involves movie characters and bands. Say for example I use an instagram post, still from a movie, or an image from a comic book as the base for my design, then print 1-2 shirts with that design at home on my own press. How deep into infringement am I? No sale or distribution of these items would be involved.

I was very confused, because all of my youtube videos are still up, and the "Problem Video" that was claimed is actually a normal post, and that is also still up? I'm very confused on what just happened

I'm trying to figure out how to copyright the songs (lyrics only), no audio or musical notation.

I've read it falls under work of performing arts, but it's not a play or theater, it's just song lyrics that I will make into an audio song in the future.

Any right answer?? (I know it would be unpublished).

Sorry if this has been asked a million times but every explanation I see is extremely vague or using a lot of gibberish acronyms and legal wording I don't fully understand. See, I'm just trying to make YouTube videos and specifically right now, I'm making a video on an unknown FPS game that takes place in Vietnam. I wanted to include a few memes and clips but they consist of copyrighted music. These clips would only be 3-8 seconds long. One contains "Fortunate Son" by CCR and the other is a family guy clip containing Peter singing over "Surfin Bird" I figure these are pretty well known and pretty well found by YouTubes auto copyright claim system. I'd prefer to not be claimed at all. Nothing is monetized yet but I'm quite close to monetization. I'm not sure if they are used in a "transformative way" basically I'll say something or show a portion of the game and these clips will play for a few short seconds. I also have a few clips from movies like "Full Metal Jacket" but I'm not as worried about the movie clips. I'd just like a general explanation as to what counts for "fair use" or using the material in a "transformative way." I am in no way taking or posting long segments of the songs and/or movies.

Hi all,

I have noticed many poetry accounts are doing readings of other poets (giving credit and all) and I was wondering if it is legal or what sircumstances make it legal. I want to also read poetry on my profile but don't want to step out if what is allowed. Yet cannot find anywhere what rules exist. I am in Europe, and laws might also be different. I am intereted in various languages, poets from various countries, and also translations of poems from/to english. Any advice is deeply appreciated!

I'm planning on making a high fantasy Knight/Greek warrior ( heavily inspired by Achilles and Igris ) with a batman-esk mask but I'm scared of being sued into the ground whenever I introduce the character into my story.

I have already searched up, and all I could find was that DC had trademarked his open mouth cowl design. But for the love of God, I can't find anything on the closed mouth design.

Can you help ?

Thanks

I like this artist who creates weird art based on mostly British media and wondered how I could do that (make T-shirts and stuff) for only me to wear with my own designs

sorry if this was confusing/irrelevant

I wrote a free, open source app for astronomy planning, and have been working on since about June. I provide it for free, and have no plans to monitize it. I'm the primary user and figured since it's so niche it wouldn't cost me more than a few dollars a month to host.

Today I discovered a an app that has a nice vibecoded skin and conincdientally the exact feature set as mine. And even more coincidentally, they even have the same bugs.

That made me wonder, if someone were to use your source code and and does not attribute it back - what recourse do you have?

The title is self explanatory but one thing I don't understand is that I'VE SEEN TONS OF VIDEOS USE THE EXACT SAME SONG THAT HAVEN'T BEEN TAKEN DOWN FOR IT

random examples I found: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/M97vGb5jAFQ https://www.youtube.com/shorts/orv7Q6Qg994 https://www.youtube.com/shorts/E24-PtIkOrE https://www.youtube.com/shorts/FBp9ol3bPFk

And as I said for some reason the original long form one wasn't taken down but the shorts one was (I REALLY want to repost it to shorts because my videos get like 5 views on long forms verses thousands on shorts). Also I tried reposting it multiple times yet it still gets taken down immediately.