On Tue, Jan 23, 2007 at 04:03:55PM +1100, Stephen Bain wrote:
When you start mixing stuff you complicate things. If
I were to take a
screenshot of a page on Wikipedia, for example, the text of the page
would be GFDL (unless there are some quotes or something in the text,
which would be fair use), the MediaWiki elements would be GPL, the
browser window could be anything (if you're in Firefox, for example,
then the picture of the browser interface is under the Mozilla Public
Licence). The skins that come with MediaWiki are GPL just like the
rest of MediaWiki.
So unfortunately you can't get PD screenshots of MediaWiki. The best
you can do is GPL screenshots, but only if you show only GPL content
in it and either cut out the browser interface or use a GPL browser.
Someone vastly misunderstands the nature of copyright law, I think.
(Though, admittedly, IANAL, either. I just play on on the net.)
If I create a screenshot of a browser page on my computer displaying
wikipedia, there is *one* copyright involved: *mine*. The image is not
a derivative work of the browser, the OS, or the website. Therefore,
none of those people's copyrights apply, and therefore by induction, no
licenses are necessary. I created an image, and I own its copyright.
The situation is pretty much identical to my *taking a photograph* of
the screen displaying said browser.
If I want to use that image for *commercial advertising*, there msy be
some issues with respect to model releases for pictures of identifiable
people, or trademarks (though this is even less clear), but -- and
particularly if the destination of the image is pedagogy -- underlying
copyrights don't, that I am able to determine, have anything whatsoever
to do with it. Trademark law doesn't say you can't reproduce the
trademark, it says you can't make money off it, or confuse other people
about who it refers to.
I'm sufficiently confident of this that I'd say "don't worry about
it"
in a public place, unless I'm contradicted by an attorney whose
practice is in copyright law.
Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth jra(a)baylink.com
Designer Baylink RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates The Things I Think '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA
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