I have a big problem my book publisher Publish America suggested I change my title to Rise of the Humanoid. The problem it’s been over 1 year and my contract still shows the old title The UnKnown I feel cheated because they asked me to change my title after I signed the contract. I hope you can help?

Is it illegal to write down lyrics and chords to songs and share them with other people who play the same instrument? I play Q Chord and can’t find music with the buttons marked to push so I write the music myself for the instrument. Others find this works well with the ovals representing the buttons.

My book as been accepted in Raider Publishing, but before I go any further I would like to know how I can trust them. Should I get a lawyer to help me when I sign the contract in case they are trying to trap me within it? I am only 17 years old so I am completely confused.

OK…so, I am recording an album of material that is very often considered “traditional” music – SOME of the songs are in the Public Domain, so I am not worried about those. But, what about the others. The song Hesitation Blues for example, does back to the early 1900’s, but it seems like MANY people own the copyright because it has been recorded many times over the years. I want to record these songs, but want to legally do it the correct way. Please help.

I live in San Diego and searching for a copyright attorney that can do a few things for me for my start up business. I was considering doing it myself but after talking with several different firms I’ve decided this is something I don’t want to screw up. Can anyone tell me the going rate for an attorney to handle copyrighting in California more specifically an attorney in the San Diego area? Thanks so much for your help!

I have noticed that much of my website content I use is being used through RSS feeds and sometimes just straight high jacking from my website. I go to contact these people and there is no contact information, about us pages etc. Essentially there is no way to contact these people. I’ve got to think this is illegal. How do I go about getting them to take down the my content without having to hire an attorney? I have a little website that I run that only generates a few bucks a day so its not like I have the money to hire an attorney. Please let me know what I should do?

I run a local guide service for hunting in Texas. For the last 8 months I have been running the property with no problems or complaints. I run a very clean business and have a lot of clients. Recently we decided to focus all our efforts on to one piece of property that we lease from a landowner. So we dropped all our other properties and only had this one. We did have a contract until the last day of August. The new contract wasn’t to be signed until right before this years deer hunting season which starts Nov 7th 2009. We had lots of verbal agreements to continue the hog hunting until the new contract was signed. So we continued until just the other day, the land owner emailied us alleging that we and our hunters left trash on the property, which is false. We always pick up after us and the hog hunters. We have had hunters booked for the next few weeks and one group in Feb 2010, the hunters paid deposits that we can’t refund because we used the money for this months feed on the property. Now the landowner has started his own guide service business, and we will not be able to honor our clients hunts unless we give the landowner our stands and feeders, or pay him the other half of the deposit which we don’t have. We have offered him to work the hunts anyways and he still refuses. Now I have been searching the web looking for his advertisements and seeing how long ago he has been advertising. Well I found pictures that we use on our website on his advertisements. This pictures clearly have our guide service name on them, and he is still using them. Is there any legal action that can be taken place for all of this, including copyright laws. I do have Print screen pictures of his ads using our pictures.

Hi, I have pasted a part of my contract below this question. I signed a contract with publish america. They have now cancelled my book. My question is, according to this contract does the rights of the book go back to me so I can find another publisher? Or do they still have all the rights to the book? Notwithstanding the reversion of publishing rights to Author, Author’s remaining obligations to Publisher, including the warranties and indemnifications provided in paragraph 23 shall survive the discontinuation of the book pursuant to this paragraph.
23. Warranties and Indemnification: The Author covenants and represents that the Work contains no matter that, when published, will incite prejudice, amount to an invasion of privacy, be libelous, obscene, or otherwise unlawful, or which will infringe upon any proprietary interest at common law, trademark, trade secret, patent or copyright; that the Author is the sole proprietor of the Work and all parts thereof (or has obtained all necessary permissions), has reached the age of majority and has full power to make and perform this grant and agreement, and that the Work is free of any lien, claim, charge or debt of any kind, and that the Author and his legal successors and/or representatives will hold harmless and keep indemnified the Publisher
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from all manner of claims, proceeding and expenses, including attorneys’ fees, which may be taken or incurred by Publisher on the ground that the covenants above are not true or that the Work is subject to any such lien, claim, charge or debt, or that it is such violation, or that it contains anything defamatory or illegal.

copy right law.i am an exsperiance artist that also collects baseball cards.i like to paint a baseball card i got and then sell it.the card is copy righted by upper deck.i am not going to use there name no where.i well be painting the picture as close as i can of the card and then try to sell it.am i breaking any laws.

This is a somewhat complicated issue, so i will split it up into parts.

1) Lets say Fred just created the “fred cube” (in this example, it is the same as the rubicks cube, but slightly harder), and has sold over 25000 of them. The only website dedicated to the Fred Cube is fredcube.com. Fred sells his cube at an outrageous price of 20$ each. There are also many retailers throughout the world that sell them for at least 20$/ea. I have a retailer friend -Bob- who is willing to sell me the Fred Cube for $5/ea. Am i allowed to resell (online) the Fred cube at 15$ each without permission from Bob and Fred himself? If i can’t what exactly are the issues and what penalties are involved?

2) Let’s say I am. It is very hard to solve the Fred Cube. But on FredCube.com , Fred made videos, diagrams, and PDF files visually explaining how to solve the Fred Cube. Can i upload Fred’s PDF files (which all have the official Fred Cube logo on it) onto my website’s directory and allow my buyers to upload his pdf files off my website without Fred’s permission? please note: Neither his website nor his pdf files nor the Fred Cube itself have a copyright logo on it.