screen grabs of a forum = fair use?

forgotmyname

bsod wrote: »

perhaps you're spending too much time on forums, some spam on someone else's forum is not worth a heart attack

Depends what you mean by too much time, A few minutes checking new posts and a few forums open in separate tabs as i work on something else.

Or an hour or so sitting at the computer as i wait for something to print.

The reporting of the spam is not the issue its the fact that they removed my post without a reason. You cannot comment negatively on anything they do not want you to. But they do not tell you the rules either.

Imagine this website sponsored by loan sharks, pc scams and websites that advertise stuff but wont ever send anything out.

They edit your post to say what a wonderful person the scammer is and what a bargain you got.

forgotmyname

custardy wrote: »

So its UKCS then.......

Spot on. Is that from experience or google of the quote above?

Marktheshark

Fair use is American law, copyright infringement is theft in the UK and carries a prison term for flagrant copyright infringement or at very least serious financial damages.

forgotmyname

onomatopoeia99 wrote: »

Are you American? In UK law and other common law juristictions there is the concept of fair dealing in copyright law. US law talks about fair use.

If you are indeed in the UK, you should read section 30 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and see if you think it means screen captures of a website count as fair dealing for the puropse of "criticism, review and news reporting". Ultimately it would be for a court to decide, but my non-professional opinion is they don't. s29 and s31 definitely do not apply.

Yes UK, S30 does seem to apply.

review or criticism (yes)
made available to the public (yes) you dont need to join the site to read the posts made.

no un authorised act will be used to obtain the screengrabs, they are available to anyone who can use google. The pages are cached.

The act does seem biased towards video and audio.