[Air-L] Using screen captures in Thesis paper

Tue Jul 10 05:57:01 PDT 2012

Emily,

You ask a very interesting question. I can only speak to US law, but I'm of the opinion that the previous posts mentioning fair use are probably correct. Transformativeness is one of the unwritten, although arguably most important, considerations in a fair use analysis, and I imagine that your use will be quite transformative. Another major consideration is the extent of your use, which compared to the entire game, I suspect will be relatively minor. As James mentioned though, this analysis changes if you're writing a thesis versus publishing a book (commercial gain is a factor that will be weighed against you).

One thing to keep in mind is that the US fair use statute is an exemption, meaning that you are technically violating a copyright, but you're basically forgiven by the law. Unfortunately, that means that you never really know if you'll be forgiven until you get to court. That implies that you should /always/ get written permission where you can. I'd also encourage people not to rely too heavily on the "educational fair use" being discussed because I've seen quite a few cases limiting the scope of that defense in the past few years. Always consider all aspects of your use, and don't just think, "well, it's for education, so I'm fine." When in doubt, make friends with a lawyer or buy me a beer and then ask.

A cursory reading of that TOU you excerpted seems to me that it doesn't give them any more rights than those conferred by the Copyright Act. More interesting to me would be a TOU that attempted to limit your fair use. I'm glad you posted this because I'm writing an article right now on copyright owners contracting around other provisions of the Copyright Act and I hadn't considered the fair use angle.

Best,

Josh

----
Joshua Auriemma, Esq.
Ph.D. Candidate — Penn State Mass Comm.
http://legalgeekery.com

On Jul 10, 2012, at 7:24 AM, Mark Chen wrote:

Howdy,

Peter's fair-use argument would be my argument. Tho... I'm not a lawyer
either... :)

Emily presumably isn't selling her thesis; nor is she distributing it for
commercial gain. In fact, she's not redistributing the work as work, per
se, but rather as an object of study that is included with the actual work
that's being distributed (her writing and analysis and commentary about the
work). Blizzard has a similar terms of service agreement with WoW. Many,
many scholars used WoW screenshots in their research both with and without
permission, the latter probably making a fair-use argument.

Also, I have no idea if being in Taiwan changes things.

mark

On Tue, Jul 10, 2012 at 5:13 AM, Peter Gloviczki <glovi002 at umn.edu<mailto:glovi002 at umn.edu>> wrote:

Hi, Emily and all,

Could Emily make a fair-use argument? Something along the lines
of--this information is publicly available, and for research purposes,
it should be permissible for her to include the screenshots with
proper attribution--I'm not a lawyer or a legal scholar, but perhaps
some that are on this list might be able to comment?

Peter

On Mon, Jul 9, 2012 at 10:45 PM, Emily Liu <b941020045 at gmail.com<mailto:b941020045 at gmail.com>> wrote:
Dear All,

While doing my research on the online forum-based interactive gaming
site (
www.gaiaonline.com<http://www.gaiaonline.com>), I have encountered another problem.

The site's Terms of Service mention that "The visual interfaces,
graphics,
design, compilation, information, computer code, products, software,
services, and all other elements of Gaia Online provided by Gaia,
including
without limitation any artwork, Gaia virtual items, Gaia Gold, Member
Submissions, Gaia Member Online Accounts or User IDs, or visual art and
any
combination thereof (all of the foregoing, collectively, the "Materials")
are protected by copyright, trade dress, patent, and trademark laws,
international conventions, and all other relevant intellectual property
and
proprietary rights, and applicable laws. Except as expressly authorized
by
Gaia, you agree not to buy, sell, license, distribute, copy, modify,
publicly perform or display, transmit, publish, edit, adapt, create
derivative works from, or otherwise make any unauthorized or commercial
use
of the Materials. You agree to abide by all copyright notices,
information
and restrictions contained in any Materials." Yet I need to include
screenshots of the forum and user avatars in my thesis to illustrate my
research site and let others understand how forum-based role playing is
conducted.

I have tried to get authorization to use the site's images by writing to
their usertalk email, public relations email, and the site moderator, but
received no replies. In this case, can I still include screen capture
images in my paper? How should I deal with the issue of copyright or
authorization?

Thank you

Emily

--

Min-Ju Liu (Emily)

M.A. Student in Applied Linguistics

Department of Foreign Languages and Literature
National Sun Yat-sen University
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--
Peter Joseph Gloviczki, Ph.D.
http://petergloviczki.com
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--
Mark Chen, PhD | Post-Doctoral Scholar | @mcdanger | markdangerchen.net<http://markdangerchen.net>
University of Washington | LIFE Center | Inst for Science and Math Ed |
Center for Game Science
This was sent from a PC with a full-size keyboard; misspellings and brevity
are entirely my fault.
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