[License-discuss] Screenshots of Open Source SW

[Sebastian Hoffmann]

Hello,
> > Are there really countries with no concept of this at all?

As far as I know, "fair use" is a concept usally to be find in states with "common law".Legal systems based on "civil law" have copyright laws and citation laws, which explicitly state what is permitted and what not.The problem is that, they these laws are more or less vague.

> So, using a screenshot (assuming the screenshot is copyrightable) in any ...

In Germany a creation must have "some constructive or artistic level" to be protected by copyright law.The problem is to decide, if a special work has this height.In the case of uncertainty, you will have to sue and get a decision from a court.

So when you use a screenshot, theoretically the producer of the software can sue and you will find yourself in a courthouse. That is something, wich you usually want to avoid...
Citation rights should be similar to the Dutch mentioned before. I think, copyright and citation rights should be at least somehow familar for EU. So when you are citing, you can do some more things, which would by otherwise not allowed by copyright laws.
> This is the sort of thing fair use was made for. Without it, I couldn't
> take a full-screen screenshot of a problem I'm having on a Windows
> machine and send it to my grandma so she can help me debug it, because
> it contains the Windows logo.Indeed this is explicitly allowed by Microsoft, as they have a policy for screenshots:http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/legal/intellectualproperty/Permissions/default.aspx#Screen Shots
That's why I think, having some kind of policy or statements in licenses about derived work like screenshots could maybe give more legal certainty. Or maybe having some kind of interpretation of existing licenses.
Best regards 		 	   		  
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