Like using music from a video game/film in a video that isn’t published on the internet, or using it as a ringtone in phones, or using voice lines from a video game as notification sounds. (There are a lot of other uses that I won’t mention here)
Lawyers are expensive. Suing someone who uses it as a ringtone will probably be bad for public relations.
Cost benefit analysis.
How much will an entity spend on Lawyers, compared to what will you receive in damages.
Well, in Switzerland pirating for personal use is pretty much legal.
Yet you still can’t smoke a THC rich joint legally (yet, unless you’re participating in the pilot), and women didn’t have full voting rights until the 90s.
Not judging, just thought (as an outsider) this was an odd contrast when most of what I knew about Switzerland until recently was how permissive they were about piracy. Beautiful and interesting place, would love to visit again but it’s so f’ing expensive.
In the USA there is a fair use doctrine/clause to copyright laws which excludes noncommercial works. This also stems from the English common law’s fair dealings doctrine.
17 U.S. Code § 107 - Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include—
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.
(Pub. L. 94–553, title I, § 101, Oct. 19, 1976, 90 Stat. 2546; Pub. L. 101–650, title VI, § 607, Dec. 1, 1990, 104 Stat. 5132; Pub. L. 102–492, Oct. 24, 1992, 106 Stat. 3145.)That said, Judges generally have the final say and have decided cases wildly differently from each other in either direction in the past on what is and is not copyright infringement.
The examples mentioned are definitely not fair use
The post title includes “non-commercial”.
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.Pretty sure these two lines cover most of the examples OP mentioned. Using a sound effect or VO line from a videogame for noncommercial means is both a tiny portion of the totality of the work, and will likely have no effect on the market or value for that work.
also by editing it, it’s no longer the original work. there is a lot of Grey area around the concepts of sampling.
otherwise all speech recorded intentionally or unintentionally would violate such.
As @finitebanjo@feddit.online quoted, fair use only applies
for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research
Of the four criteria for fair use, the first one is pretty much that it should be one of those purposes. (https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/#%3A~%3Atext=Courts+look+at+how+the+party+claiming+fair+use+is+using+the+copyrighted+work%2C+and+are+more+likely+to+find+that+nonprofit+educational+and+noncommercial+uses+are+fair. details these criteria. The first criterion also includes favoring saying that really transformative and creative use is fair use hence sometimes sampling doesn’t need permission.) IANAL but this is what we see in case law and case law doesn’t seem to support a noncommercial personal use exemption, even if undistributed. (to answer OP’s question, it’s technically illegal but nobody gets sued for it because 1. nobody knows if you don’t punish your crime 2. lawyers cost money so why bother such a PR scandal)
Here’s a good Tom Scott video covering the allowed purposes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Jwo5qc78QU
Ringtones and notifications are different because they are legal public performance of something still copyrighted: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/10/court-rules-phones-ringing-public-dont-infringe-co
FALSE, THIS USER ABOVE IS LYING.
ALL TYPES OF NONCOMMERCIAL USE CAN ALSO BE FAIR USE. (Until the judge says otherwise and it doesn’t get overruled).
This does not mean, however, that all nonprofit education and noncommercial uses are fair and all commercial uses are not fair;
Edit:
Until the judge says otherwise
Well, yeah, according to the criteria I’ve detailed with sources above.
Courts look at how the party claiming fair use is using the copyrighted work, and are more likely to find that nonprofit educational and noncommercial uses are fair. This does not mean, however, that all nonprofit education and noncommercial uses are fair and all commercial uses are not fair; instead, courts will balance the purpose and character of the use against the other factors below.
On its own, a noncommercial use is fair use, unless other factors get in the way of that. I will ammend my previous comment to be less absolute.
Your phrasing sounds like fair use is the default case for non-commercial when really it just makes it “more likely” legal. The most obvious example is Hachette v. Internet Archive. US copyright is so pro-business that you never know until the gavel is down.
Copyright infringement is committed by the provider, not the receiver. If you’re just an end-user of the content, they can’t really go after you unless you acquired it via a peer-to-peer network and also seeded it to others. (And they have, in fact, infamously gone after people for that.)
That was more common in the US than in other jurisdictions. In Canada, they capped out torrenting at $500 for all instances prior to the suit, which means the lawyers were losing money for the copyright holders. Also, it was determined that if you didn’t store the files, i.e., streaming, it wasn’t illegal at all. After that, I stopped hearing about non-commercial copyright infringement cases in Canada (and I can’t legally justify torrenting).
