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Legal Impediments to Using F/OSS Screenshots?

Posted by Cliff on from the publisher's-headaches dept.

Software Illustrated asks: "When publishing books on how to use Linux desktop software, the legal/IP review process to make sure we aren't infringing on the property rights of 3rd party sources should be easier than for books about proprietary/closed source software, right? Microsoft makes it easy as long as you comply with their guideline. I didn't think it would be necessary to get permission to publish a screenshot of, for instance, the GNOME gconf-editor. But that is just what our legal/IP review team is pursuing. Is this necessary?" "If not, then how do you explain to a by-the-book contract administrator that the rules are different with GNOME? I find myself dealing with exactly this problem right now, resulting in a book ready for publication being put on hold. Is the solution here to get GNOME (and KDE for that matter) to publish their own permission guidelines ala Microsoft? Seems counterintuitive to the spirit of the F/OSS movement. But doing this sure would grease the skids for publishers. Has anyone else dealt with this issue?"

5 of 75 comments (clear)

  1. Re:404 by RealityMogul · · Score: 2, Informative

    Not sure if this is what the poster was referring to , but here: http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/permission/default .mspx#EMAA

  2. Should be covered under fair use by ZosX · · Score: 2, Informative

    You are representing a product in a review correct?

    For reporting purposes you can show a lot of things. The worst you will likely get is a cease and desist letter, but from OSS, I would highly doubt it.

    Fair use covers reporting if I remember correctly. A screenshot is not even in any way related to the actual product other than as a representation, much less than say a picture of a painting or a snippet of an MP3.

    Seriously, just post screenshots. If you get a cease and desist, just take them down. Microsoft and a few other companies have used this tactic (witness the longhorn screenshot debacle), but nobody was sued.

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    zosxavius photography
  3. Re:CORRECTION by bcrowell · · Score: 2, Informative

    A book about computer software is an educational tool. Also covered under fair use.
    No way. Check out this info on how fair use works. If it's a for-profit book, and they're selling thousands of copies, then it's very shaky to claim fair use. Whether it's educational is just one of the many criteria that have to be weighed together to decide if it falls under fair use. A typical textbook publisher never uses anything under fair use, because it costs too much money to print the book to risk it all on the possibility of a lawsuit.

    --
    Find free books.
  4. Re:Wow, the lawyers are getting pretty creative. by tverbeek · · Score: 2, Informative
    Fair use only allows for limited, non-commercial uses (i.e. criticisms, news oriented, etc.).

    Not quite. "Fair use" is a deliberately subjective four-part test that considers:

    1. the purpose and character of your use
    2. the nature of the copyrighted work
    3. the amount and substantiality of the portion taken, and
    4. the effect of the use upon the potential market.
    source: So you're not exactly wrong because "limited" and "non-commercial" are factors, but they're not the only factors, and it's conceivable that a large-scale, commercial use could qualify as "fair use" if the other factors weighed very heavily in favor of that judgment.
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    http://alternatives.rzero.com/
  5. Incorrect Because the program always outputs them by NZheretic · · Score: 2, Informative
    A) The Program OUTPUTS images generated by the themes to the Clients X Server. This is important. The GPL license does not restrict what you can do with the output of a GPL program. You can capture the output from the X Server with a screen shot, put it on the web, or reproduce it in printed media. Reread the GPL license.

    B1) The GPL comes under effect only when you distribute the result outside of your organization. You are entirely free to use the GPL source code as you wish as long as you do not distribute the derivative outside of your organization.
    B2) The theme plug in DDL library used by applications for GTK+/GNOME and KDE is LGPL licensed. You can link and distribute NON-GPL licensed code that links to those DDLs.
    B3) The applications are distributed seperate from the themes and the applications are in no way dependent upon a any theme to run.
    B4) It is the users, NOT the application distributer, who get the applcations to load individual themes. Because the end user does so within their own organization, they are free to do so : see (B1)

    As I have already stated: Like a browser is a viewer for HTML'ed content, KDE/GTK+/GNOME applications are also viewers for the Themes.