Using screenshots of movies in my layout

Legal or not?

[jozomannen]

I'm currently working on a design for a movie site, I have a good site with royaly free images I'm using, but non of them contains any movie images. So I wonder if it's legal to take screenshots from movies and use parts of them on my site.

[Beagle]

This has been discussed a number of times here. It's almost always a fair use issue, and fair use has elements to look at, but there are sometimes judgment calls involved. So that makes my "I am not a lawyer - ask one of them if you have questions" disclaimer even more important.

One way to try to get a handle on this is to think about it in parallel to the type of fair use you'd have in a book review. If you're discussing a book, fair use allows you to take short quotes from it to illustrate points you're making. But it doesn't allow you to use big blocks of text. And it also doesn't allow you to simply print text from the book without your own commentary/analysis applied to it. (Besides book reviews, this would also apply to short attributed quotes in essays and articles.)

Some people think that if they're not making money from the text/images they're using, it's fair use no matter what. But that's only one of the elements looked at. Also involved is how much of the longer work you're using, and whether your use of it is part of your own commentary/review/analysis. The latter would mean that the specific screenshot(s) used would need to be relevant to what you're saying, just as a quote in a book review would need to be relevant to the specific point you're making about the book. OTOH, if you are making/planning to make money from use of the images (affiliate links, adsense, selling items), the other elements of fair use have to be even stronger -- use even less of the work, be even more careful to make it only a small part of your commentary.

If possible, of course, you can always ask for permission from the copyright holder. That's easier if you're using frames from one movie, or one studio's movies; more difficult if it's a broad range of works. Getting the copyright holder's permission not only lets you use the work without having to worry about it, but also gives you a nice bit of cache in being able to say, "Used by permission..." which not many site owners can do.

[jozomannen]

Thanks for you reply. This is a tough call then.. I'm not going to use the screenshot of the movie in the text, it's going to be in the background of the header, and some text should be in the front. So it's not related to any article and I'm not making any money just by having it there.

Maybe I can find some public photos of some movie that I can use. I will check out some movie sites.

[Beagle]

Sounds like a good idea. Most studios have publicity shots from their movies that are used in news stories, etc. If there's a "press" section of the website, you could check there. They may still require you to ask permission, or at least inform them that you're using the picture, but it's unlikely they'd say no, since that what the pictures are for.

[angelos]

First, I'd say that the disclaimer like "I am not a lawyer and so on" should go without saying. Apparently, most of the people here are not lawyers. So, when a person asks a question of legal nature he or she is supposed to realize the fact they are going to get just an opinion but not a competent advice. Mine is not exception. IMHO, a movie, like any other media product, is an object of intellectual property. Thus, IP is to be under certain legal protection restricting some kinds of its using. In this case when you're gonna use some parts of the movie you will logically affect the rights of the movies' owner as it's him or her who created it and who counts on getting some benefits every time the product has been used. Therefore, you can make conclusions yourself.