<html>
<head>
<style><!--
.hmmessage P
{
margin:0px;
padding:0px
}
body.hmmessage
{
font-size: 12pt;
font-family:Calibri
}
--></style></head>
<body class='hmmessage'><div dir='ltr'><div><font face="Arial">Hello,</font></div><div><font face="Arial"><br></font></div><font face="Arial">> > Are there really countries with no concept of this at all?<br><br>As far as I know, "fair use" is a concept usally to be find in states with "common law".</font><div><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><font face="Arial">Legal systems based on "civil law" have copyright laws and citation laws, which explicitly state what is permitted and what not.</font></span></div><div><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><font face="Arial">The problem is that, they these laws are more or less vague.</font></span></div><div><font face="Arial"><br></font><div><font face="Arial"><br></font></div><div><font face="Arial">> So, using a screenshot (assuming the screenshot is copyrightable) in any ...<br></font></div><div><font face="Arial"><br></font></div><div><font face="Arial">In Germany a creation must have "some constructive or artistic level" to be protected by copyright law.</font></div><div><font face="Arial">The problem is to decide, if a special work has this height.</font></div><div><font face="Arial">In the case of uncertainty, you will have to sue and get a decision from a court.<br><br>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...</font></div><div><font face="Arial"><br></font></div><div><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><font face="Arial">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.</font></span></div><div><font face="Arial"><br></font><pre style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="Arial">> 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.</font></pre><pre style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="Arial">Indeed this is explicitly allowed by Microsoft, as they have a policy for screenshots:</font></pre><pre style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/legal/intellectualproperty/Permissions/default.aspx#Screen Shots" target="_blank" style="font-size: 12pt;"><font face="Arial">http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/legal/intellectualproperty/Permissions/default.aspx#Screen Shots</font></a></pre><pre style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"><br></span></pre><pre style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">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.</span></pre><pre style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"><br></span></pre><pre style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">Best regards</span></pre></div></div> </div></body>
</html>