Copyright Law.
Hi,
I wanted to make a mobile game to sell on the Apple App Store with content collected from a US website. The website is a dictionary of words with definitions and is all user-generated-content . I planned to use some of the words in the game but NOT definitions. From the terms of service they mention the content is the property of the user who submitted and not the website. Here's a link to the site's terms of service.
As i'm using just words and these words are part of common language would this still be infringing copyright of the website? I plan to mention the site in the games description and say it is not affiliated with them in anyway. I know of a number of Mobile Apps that seem to be querying the site's content without any official API. This one as an example.
Regards,
Copyright law in the US is
Copyright law in the US is different to the English law - so you would need to check directly with the website as to whether or not they hold copyright in the database of information (I suspect they do), despite their assertion that the individual content is the property of the person who submitted it (I think that rule is to attempt to sideline any possible claim of defamation)...ergo, if you use the words, or a substantial part of them as compiled in their dictionary, then you risk being sued for infringement.
If, on the other hand, the words are genuinely in use in every day language, then there would appear to be no reason whatsoever that you cannot use them in your game, but if that is genuinely the case, then there would be no reason to make reference to the actual website at all in your app, which you seem to want to do - thereby linking your game to them despite your assertion of a lack of affiliation.
copyright Law
Copyright law in the U.S. is governed by federal statute, namely the Copyright Act of 1976. The Copyright Act prevents the unauthorized copying of a work of authorship. However, only the copying of the work is prohibited--anyone may copy the ideas contained within a work. For example, a copyright could cover a written description of a machine, but the actual machine itself is not covered. Thus, no one could copy the written description, while anyone could use the description to build the described machine.
Copyrights can be registered in the Copyright Office in the Library of Congress, but newly created works do not need to be registered. In fact, it is no longer necessary to even place a copyright notice on a work for it to be protected by copyright law. However, the Copyright Act does provide additional benefits to those who register with the Copyright Office. Consequently, copyright registration and the use of a copyright notice is recommended.
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