RFC: screenshot - whose work? GFDL?

"Tomos at Wikipedia" <[email protected]>
Newsgroups gmane.org.wikimedia.legal
Message-ID <[email protected]>
Hello. I have a request for comments.

We were contacted by a publisher asking permission to use a screenshot of 
wikipedia in a publication. I am not in a position to give or refuse any 
permission - since I am not the copyright owner. The material is under GFDL. 
I told her all that. But then, I also thought it would be helpful to give a 
little more (non-legal) advice on this issue, rather than assuming that she 
will read and understand the GFDL and all realted matters.

So I would like to hear your opinions. Is a screenshot copyrighted work?

1) Text

The article (included only in part) is a collective work. It could be 
covered by fair use-like provision under Japanese copyright law (allowing 
quotation of copywrited works), or maybe not.

If not, I suppose it could be considered an "opaque copy" and "modification" 
because the screenshot would likely to omit certain parts of the 
document/work (it does not include the history section, it does not perhaps 
include the whole main text). The screenshot may not include the bottom of 
the screen - if that is the case, there wouldn't be a license and copyright 
notices.


2) Logo

The logo is a work of User:Nohat. It is released under GFDL at meta. But I 
am not sure about the logo at the upper-left corner of the window.

There had been an understanding that the logo would be used in this way, so 
that usage itself I think is no problem for Nohat. But it seems that it is 
not under GFDL there. (i.e., the logo is GFDL on meta, not GFDL on other 
part. This is not a problem, since the licensor retains the full copyright 
and has the right to re-license anyway s/he wants.)

3) Overall look and feel

The overall look and feel of the screen is largely determined by the design 
of the skin. Is this also a copyrighted work of, say, some developers? If 
so, is it under GPL (as opposed to GFDL) ? Or is this something more akin to 
a work automatically generated by machanical process, and therefore not a 
copyrighted work?

4) Relations of the elements

In a window, skin, text and logo are combined and arranged in a certain way. 
I am not sure how to understand this.

Is this a copyrighted work in any sense?
Is there a possibility that we are mixing GFDL and GPL stuff?
Is this an aggregation in GFDL's sense?

As always, thanks for your attention.

regards,

Tomos

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