I am having a debate with some friends. If you have an article about a sports event, would one small frame from an internet TV stream be breaking IP/copyright law or would it be fair use?
For example, my friend runs a soccer site from Pakistan, so he uses the internet to watch live football games – if he does a screen grab of a particularly good goal to use in his site, is that breaking the law?
What say you?
7 Comments
Fair use is tricky…especially in cases where there may be money involved for the person using the image (or whatever the case may be).
Probably pretty safe with a single frame of a video unless for some reason posting it could take away potential earnings from the original source (say, leaking a frame of a video that was meant solely for private use, or from a video that is only available to a select group of people who purchase it) could get you in trouble, but something like a frame from a sporting event is pretty clearly fair use. I wouldn’t go try to sell posters of it or anything though
The easy way out of (or around) these tricky legal issues: Ask the owner!
Why would we want to profit from the work of others against their will, even if it was legal?
Agreed, Mk. Always better to get permission whenever possible.
Fair use? No.
Fair use covers partial copies or small copies (quotes & thumbnails) for the purpose of critique, review, or education. This is a very gray area, the same case could go either way based on the judge/jury. Money has nothing to do with the infringement, only the damages awarded. You could give away copies or sell them, the ruling on the infringement will be the same – guilty or not guilty.
@Michael – When you say, “Money has nothing to do with the infringement, only the damages awarded”, you are right in a sense. Whether or not you make money on the copyrighted item is not legally relevant…what is legally relevant is whether or not your use of the item could affect the copyright owner’s profits, or have other adverse effects for them…which is where the damages awarded comes in. It is extremely hard to show damages in regards to something like a screen capture from footage of an event that was not exclusive to the copyright owner such as this case, so while they would be well within their rights to ask it be taken down, that’s about as far as they could go with it with any legal merit.
That said, it’s always better to ask permission when possible and save everyone the headache anyway…and it’s definitely the “nice” thing to do, even if the legality is a bit fuzzy.
I think it is copyrighted, it should get the permission first.
great stuff