Re: Publishing on WWW

Lewis Rose (lewrose@netcom.com)
Fri, 23 Dec 1994 13:34:00 -0800

At 01:08 PM 12/23/94 CST, Mary Morris wrote:
>> For example, many Internet books and seminar presenters make use of
>> screen shots of a large variety of WEB and gopher sites for
>> illustrative purposes. Can this be done without the owner's permission
>> (the owner in this case being either the WEB site owner, or the
>> individual(s) whose information is being displayed)?
>
>I would love to hear the answer to this since, C&S's original
>web page stated that it was copyright and even reproduction
>of the page required written permission. It appears that *some*
>lawyers feel that it could be held up in a court of laws.

In my view, one cannot make use of screen shots of web pages or gopher sites
without the author's permission unless they fall within the fair use
exception to this prohibition.

The fair use doctrine is complicated in application, although the factors
balanced by judges are fairly straightforward. I will look in my office on
Tuesday for a concise summary of the doctrine that we have prepared and post
it to the list if it is short enough or post to the Advertising Law Internet
Site if it is too long for the list with an announcement here.

Lew

Lewis Rose 202-857-6012 (voice)
Arent Fox 202-857-6395 (fax)
1050 Connecticut Avenue, NW lewrose@netcom.com (email)
Washington, DC 20036 Advertising and Marketing Law
Advertising Law Internet Site URL: http://www.webcom.com/~lewrose/home.html