RE: movie poster & book jacket images

Ok, I hope this helps you.  

Question 1
"printed brochure to be distributed to the attendees of a reception launching a series of workshops" The event is not a class or something for educational purposes - like the workshops themselves. It is an Opening reception - a form of promotion and solicitations.
"They expect a select group at this function, perhaps 25 or 30 folks." I do not think the number of people matter, but I'm not a judge who may factor that in if they are evaluating a case. It is the intent of use of the images that I believe is the issue.
"They want to include in the brochure the images of some of the movie posters and book jackets that will be taught during the workshops." These images have copyright holders and they must give permission and or be licenced. At the museum where I work we have to get the permission of the artist whose works we wish to use to promote the exhibits. If the artist is dead or not the holder of the copyright we must get permission from the copyright holder before using the images and sending out our mailers and other promotional items. And just for clarity it doesn't matter what your organization is. We are non-profit and attached to a college. Now section 107 (fair use) does state that a judge will consider "the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes." BUT I wouldn't risk it as the event isn't the class itself, but a promotional reception and to solicit students.

"The images have come primarily from the web" Images taken from the web are most likely Technically illegal posted. For example if you have a book of Todd Lockwood art and scanned a couple images in to use as the wallpaper on your PERSONAL computer you're likely ok, but if you were to put them up on the web where anyone could get them that's technically a violation of copyright.
17.2.202 "Ownership of a copyright, or of any of the exclusive rights under a copyright, is distinct from ownership of any material object in which the work is embodied. Transfer of ownership of any material object, including the copy or phonorecord in which the work is first fixed, does not of itself convey any rights in the copyrighted work embodied in the object; nor, in the absence of an agreement, does transfer of ownership of a copyright or of any exclusive rights under a copyright convey property rights in any material object."

"Would the use as described be considered Fair Use? " So I hope that you can see that the answer is NO. You need to get permission.

Question 2
"Would Fair Use apply if they created a brochure including the same images to be used for a mass-mailing soliciting potential enrollees." Again if it isn't being used for critique (a paper written by a student or researcher for example) or for parody/satire (Political cartoons or Saturday Night Live) then you need permission.

Question 3
 "(an aside) Does Amazon have permissions/pay royalties for the images on their site?"  

(It is) Fair Use. A search engine's practice of creating small reproductions ("thumbnails") of images and placing them on its own website (known as "inlining") did not undermine the potential market for the sale or licensing of those images. Important Factors. The thumbnails were much smaller and of much poorer quality than the original photos and served to index the images and help the public access them. (Kelly v. Arriba-Soft, 03 C.D.O.S. 5888 (9th Cir. 2003).) - this is off of the utsystem site listed below.  Now that you can read the first few pages I think that Amazon does gain permission for this service. Hence, why some book have images or not and why some can be "searched" and other not. But I don't work for them so I don't know for sure.

Here are a couple of great sites that help: http://fairuse.stanford.edu/ http://www.utsystem.edu/OGC/IntellectualProperty/multimed.htm  

Good Luck!  

Robin DeSpain
Woodbury Art Museum  

"Right! Where are we going?" - Pippin Took
Received on Fri Jun 24 2005 - 00:55:00 GMT