I created a sort of interactive game with live video that involves the use of objects in my residence such as furniture, dice, lids from food containers, and office supplies. Are the appearances of these items copyrighted, and if so, could the video footage focusing on them possibly constitute copyright infringement? The game is only to be used for fun with family (and possibly friends) but not for money.

Good morning,

If someone wanted to start a test prep company, would permission be needed from the companies who make the standardized tests? I am wondering if the test prep company could be considered to be making derivative works of the tests.

Thank you.

If a cross country running coach had the results of a meet in a spreadsheet and used some Excel formulas to determine the scores of the teams, could that possibly infringe on the patent on a software package that exists to do this?

Suppose a statistician wanted to rank cross country runners and their teams using a formula that is based on their ordered finishes in a series of races. Would the statistician need permission to enter into a spreadsheet and analyze the results, which show the athletes, their teams, and the order in which they finished? Or would the results not be copyrightable?

If a newspaper or sports agency wanted to list high school athletes with different font colors based on their respective school colors, could that be considered trademark infringement against the schools?

If I took an action shot of an athlete during a competition, could there be any copyright issues with his uniform appearing in the picture?  I am mainly thinking of the design of the uniform and the manufacturer's logo.

In one of the classes I teach, we are discussing different voting methods (plurality, Borda count, etc.) using a certain textbook.  I would like to make up some review problems similar (but by no means identical) to those in the textbook on slides for a class game.  Could this be considered a derivative work?  I know the book does not have a copyright on these concepts, but could their decision to include them all together in a chapter be copyrightable or in some sense prohibit me from creating these problems?

I use a statistical software package that generates output apparently with the Courier New font typeface.  It makes tables of data analysis.  The software company allows me to print and make copies of the output for my students, but would the use of the font in this "creative" way by the software be something I would need to check with the font creator about before making copies?

Could test prep books for things like the SAT, MCAT, etc. be considered to infringe on copyrights as derivative works of the tests themselves?

Our school purchased the rights to copy a section from a math textbook for a limited number of students.  I asked a representative from the publisher, who said that there is no third-party material contained within for which I would have to request further permission.  However, there are some graphs, arrows, formulas, etc. that may have been created by the publisher using some sort of software.  Could that pose some additional copyright issues for me?

If a teacher teaching from a textbook wants to write a test to cover the concepts in a math book, could that be considered a derivative work?  I created the problems, but they are of the same flavor as the ones in the particular chapters that the test covers.  I asked our textbook publisher about making slides to use in my lectures, and they said that I don't need permission to use concepts, which I know are not copyrightable, unless I display them in the same fashion as the book.  But I was wondering if the arrangement of the concepts into a chapter or unit could somehow be copyrighted.

What are the copyright principles behind mathematical expressions?  For example, common functions in Calculus (ln x, arcsin x, etc.) have what are known as derivatives - other functions that give certain information about them.  I imagine that the fact that a certain sequence of operations gives the necessary information is not copyrightable, but that the "expression" of the formula for the derivative could be copyrightable.  However, notation in math is fairly standard.  I have seen these formulas repeated in more than one textbook, which makes me wonder who would own the copyright.  Any help here?

We are conducting a high school cross country meet and plan to distribute tongue depressors with place values we wrote on them (1, 2, 3, etc.) as the runners come in, so that they can report to the scorer with their name and school.  Could this use of the tongue depressors be in any way construed as a derivative work that would infringe on some copyright?

Could information from a timepiece be in any way copyrighted?  We hosted a high school cross country meet and used a fairly expensive stopwatch/printer system to time the runners as they crossed the line.  If I wanted to distribute the results with times to the other coaches or post the results online, could the times we recorded as the runners finished be in any way considered the intellectual property of the timepiece manufacturer?

For the Statistics class I teach, I would like to make some worksheets that ask students to perform repeated trials with certain items such as decks of cards, spinners, dice, random number generators on calculators, and so on.  Could these worksheets be considered copyright-infringing derivative works of these items? 

If so, what if I just verbally asked the students to perform the trials and then report their results to me?  Could we write down results or enter them in a calculator without fear of infringement?

The name of the high school where I teach has three words in it - we commonly use the initials of the three words to identify ourselves.  It dawned on me that there could be companies or organizations with the same initials, so I did a web search, and my suspicions were confirmed.  Is it possible that we are committing trademark infringement by using these initials on uniforms and publications?  If so, how do we know?

Various t-shirts have the phrase "I survived" followed by a challenging experience such as a roller coaster or a certain event.  Is this trademarked, patented, or copyrighted?

We are holding a running race around the grounds of our school's athletic complex.  Because the route of the course is complicated, I would like to draw the path over a handmade map of the complex that includes the different athletic fields (track, tennis courts, etc.) and key buildings (field house, concession stand).  Would this possibly infringe on the copyright of the design of the athletic complex?

I have some piano sheet music that I play for personal use.  It is my understanding (after reading a web article by Dean McIntyre on church music and copyright) that while I may not alter the music in written form, I can improvise or make changes as I play.  Is this correct?  Just to reiterate, I am only referring to my own private use of the music, not to a public performance.

Our school is hosting a curriculum fair during which I have been asked to provide copies of a course syllabus for a couple of classes.  I have included the lists of chapter and section names of the textbook we are using for the course.  Would this be considered copyright infringement?