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A Question Of Fair Use
A brief inquiry on screenshots and copyright law.
I have nothing but respect for Carlyn Beccia and her work. I certainly wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of writing an involved review of her educational children’s book ‘Monstrous’ were it not the case.
In her latest post here on Medium, she goes into a satirical criticism of ad copy where it concerns guns and popular culture; specifically the absurd lengths gun manufacturers will go to normalize instruments of death in the hands of your average citizen.
I love her use of satire and wit to lampoon these people and their gun fetishes. It really is a good send up on the absurd assumptions gun nuts make. What gives me pause, however, is that she makes a note of saying that she can’t use screenshots of the ads in question because of U.S. copyright restrictions.
I have always been of the understanding that screenshots fall under the Fair Use doctrine of our copyright law, so long as the screenshots in question are properly marked as a representation of the material on which the commentary…
