copyright
Help in interpreting &quot;no commercial use&quot; of the copyright
<p>I have two questions concerning copyright. </p>

<p>I need sometimes, to go to a website and listen to some sound samples to make a decision. If I then specify in a document the items in a contract, based on what i am listening to those samples, am I infringing?</p>

<p>On one of the pages it says that it is prohibited to use the website for "any for profit uses".</p>

<p><a href="http://www.organstops.org/_apps/Copyright.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://www.organstops.org/_apps/Copyright.html</a></p>

<p>How is non-commercial use usually decided on, and how can someone test to make sure what they are doing will avoid copyright infringement?</p>

<p>Using things you have heard or read on a web site to make a decision and list items in a contract, without making a copy of content from the site, is not an infringement if copyright. Copyright never protects ideas, only ways of expressing ideas, such as specific words, images, and musical sounds.</p>
<p>&quot;commercial use&quot; as a restriction in a copyright license, is usually interpreted to mean any use where the re-user is charging a fee. Sometimes charging a nominal fee, only enough to reclaim expenses, is not considered &quot;commercial&quot;. The term &quot;non-profit&quot;  in such a license probably means that ther is no purpose of gain, even if a fee is charged.</p>
<p>The license on the linked page, which reads:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Permission is granted to use small excerpts from this work for educational and/or non-profit purposes, as long as due credit is given to the author.</p>
<p>Copying in whole, or in large excerpts, via any medium, is expressly forbidden without written permission from the author, with the exception of quoted material in the public domain, or quoted material covered by another copyright.</p>
<p>Any for-profit use is likewise forbidden without written permission from the author.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In probably not enforceable as written under US law. Limited use of copyrighted content, even in a for-profit enterprise, may well constitute <em>fair use</em>, and no license may prohibit a person from exercising fair-use rights.  In some cases reuse of a whole work may be fair use.</p>
<p>Some such re-use which this license seeks to forbid might be &quot;fair dealing&quot; unde the laws of those countries which use that concept.</p>
