Re: Fair Use

On 6/27/97, Steven Farmer <lsf97[_at_]aol.com> wrote:
>
> I plan to self-publish an Internet guidebook, "101 Great Web Sites",
> and want to use a screenshot of the homepage from each site. I believe
> doing so would fall under the Doctrine of Fair Use.
>
> I have seen other publishers like Wolff New Media that include a
> standard disclaimer about Fair Use in the front. Is inclusion of such
> a disclaimer bulletproof enough to ward off any potential litigation?
>
> I could clear every single screenshot with each company, but due to
> time considerations (and to keep my vision intact) I would prefer to
> fall back on Fair Use.
>
> I am especially interested in hearing from anybody else in this forum
> that has self-published a book using screenshots captured off the
> worldwide web.

We recently released a CD that included screen shots and portions of web pages and secured permisison from every web page owner. Assuming your book for sale/profit - I believe you're way out of the fair use ballpark!

We are an *educational* publisher of CD-ROM's (non-profit, funded by the U.S. Dept. of Education at Ohio State University). Additionally, we are considered a national library/repository. Our CD's are distributed FREE to every K-12 school in the country who requests one on official school letterhead! Sounds like fair use to me!

Even in our situation we don't assume fair use, so my suggestion is to assume *nothing* is fair use if you are a for-sale/for-profit publisher :>)

Good luck!

Mary Barnett
<mbarnett[_at_]enc.org> Received on Tue Jul 01 1997 - 13:26:05 GMT