The legality of screenshots

Wuzzy

Hey, any hint about the legal copyright status of screenshots? Because I'm not sure about this.

Let's say I have taken a screenshot of a game, and that game is licensed under CC BY 3.0.

Does that screenshot magically "inherit" this license?

Or is the screenshot now "mine" and I can pick whatever license?

What if the screenshot shows off artwork of the main game, but in the game I've built something new myself (like a new 3D model). What happens then?

Finally, are screenshots of proprietary games "safe" due to fair use?

EDIT: What I mean with that: Can a screenshot of a non-free game ever be a free cultural work? https://freedomdefined.org/Definition

poVoq

Yes a screenshot inherits the CC license. And no, screenshots from commercial games are likely not fair-use similar to how Let's Play are not, but they are usually tolerated as it is free advertisement.

Edit: if you added a lot of your own stuff and didn't use the game's textures etc it gets a bit murky legally. Basically it depends on the amount of own stuff vs. the amount of game stuff in the screenshot. If the amount of not your own stuff becomes insignificant you could claim fair use.

Modanung

Hm, so you can't declare screenshots CC0 without the approval of all copyrightholders involved in the creation of the featured graphics?

poVoq

Pretty much, a screenshot (or video) is a derivative work, so it needs to adhere to the licensing requirements of the contributors.

forty_sham

This is a bit of a late response, but personally one thing I've thought about is maybe some people could add some sort of exception clause in their software's license for screenshots and Let's Plays, similar to font exceptions used in some stuff. That would be beneficial. I've considered adding that to the licenses of my software.