On 7 Oct 2004, at 22:55, <dpbsmith(a)verizon.net>
wrote:
For what it's worth, a former film professor
at BU told me a story
once about
how he had found it difficult to impossible to get permission to use
actual
film frames to illustrate a more-or-less scholarly book. He said that
the
movie studios want everyone to use "production stills" instead, which
are
high-quality conventional still photographs taken more or less
concurrently
with the actual production. I'm not sure exactly why they want this, but
apparently most photographs "from films" that appear in traditional
print
media are production stills rather than actual frames.
But it's obvious, isn't it:
Simple framegrabs they can't exercise any control over because the
aforedescribed fair use rationale would likely be found to apply if
challenged in the courts (which they probably don't want people to know).
So instead, they want everybody to use production stills because the
said fair use rationale would NOT apply with them and the studio would
thus have full copyright control over those and be able to dictate
everybody wanting to use such pictures to heed their every wish and whim.
I don't know about that. One of the criteria for determining fair use
is the nature of the work. Production stills are a part of the movie's
promotion. A free use of those stills is consistent with the producers'
intent for issuing them in the firsat place. I would be surprised if
there were any court cases at all over the fair use of production stills.
Their preference for having people use production stills is probably
because they are more consistent with the impression of the movie that
they want to present to the public. What frame grabs a user might chose
could prove embarassing. It's to the producers' advantage to make the
use of production stills as easy as possible.
Ec