On Fri, 20 Jun 2008 10:43:47 +0000 (GMT) Miriam Ruiz wrote: [...] > I'm not exactly sure of the copyright and licensing issues of screenshots of > games in general.
I tend to think that a screenshot of a game is a derivative work of that game, at least of the game graphics files. If this is true, each screenshot is copyrighted by the copyright holder(s) of the game (graphics), as well as (possibly) by the person who took the screenshot[1]. Moreover, again if the above is true, the screenshot has to be licensed in a manner allowed by the license of the game (graphics). [1] his/her (not huge) creative input was choosing when to take the screenshot, and, possibly, how to get to the game situation in which the screenshot was taken... > I know that in some countries there's something call Fair Use which I'm not > really sure I fully understand, but that won't apply to some others. Conventional wisdom on debian-legal seems to be that the Debian Project cannot rely on fair use (or fair dealing or other similar legal disciplines that apply to other jurisdictions) in order to comply with the DFSG, because fair use provides very very limited rights and varies wildly across jurisdictions. AFAIK, there are only very few limited cases where fair use is exploited to achieve DFSG-freeness. Fortune cookies come to mind, several of which are short quotations of other people's works, with proper credit: however the right to properly-credited quotations seems to be present in virtually all jurisdictions, being included in the Berne Convention[2]. [2] http://wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/trtdocs_wo001.html#P144_26032 Important disclaimers: IANAL, TINLA, IANADD, TINASOTODP. > > Could someone out there help clarify those issues, please? I hope mine is a useful contribution. What I don't fully understand is: what is the purpose of the games-thumbnails package? [...] > PS: I'm CCing this bug report both to the Debian Games Team mailing list and > to Debian Legal, to see if anyone there can clarify the issue. I interpret this as a request to send my reply to you, to the bug submitter, to the bug address, and to the two lists. Please correct me, if I'm wrong. -- http://frx.netsons.org/doc/index.html#nanodocs The nano-document series is here! ..................................................... Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4
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