[WikiEN-l] Are TV screencaps reputable sources?

[Alphax (Wikipedia email)]

Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
> 
>> mboverload wrote:
>>  
>>
>>> Someone explain to me how a screencap is ANY different than a quote from a
>>> book.
>>>    
>>>
>> Quotes are factual (somebody said them), and facts cannot be copyrighted.
>>
> Wow!  Some people really work hard to prove they haven't got a clue.  
> Quotes may be factual, but they are not facts.  What is copyrighted is 
> the way something is expressed rather that its informational content.  
> Sometimes they become merged when the two are indistinguishable.  The 
> merger principle can render something uncopyrightable; this was the 
> basis for Lexmark's loss over the copyrightability of the software in 
> its ink cartridges.  When the work in question is fictional you are less 
> likely to be dealing with facts, and unless the work is in the public 
> domain the use of any quotation from it is an example of fair use.  
> Picking up the quote from a work about the work doesn't change that.
> 

You misunderstand me. First, you abuse me when I'm trying to explain
something to someone without flaming them for not understanding; second,
what is a quote if it's not a factual saying? Even made-up quotes are
factual in that someone made them up; even quotes from a book are
factual in that someone wrote the book they come from.

Oh, and if quotes are copyrightable (and we can only use them under
"fair use"), please explain to me how Wikiquote can exist?

>> A screenshot is one of several thousand (~= 24 * 60 * 45) copyrighted
>> images, a story, the characters in the story, and an audio track which
>> make up an episode of a TV show.
>>  
>>
> My understanding was that "screenshot" and "screencap" referred to 
> stills from a moving picture.  You make it sound like each pixel is 
> copyrightable. :-)
> 

No. A collection of pixels which represent something, where creative
input is involved, are copyrightable.

-- 
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